*Written by Rob Rimes.

Introduction:

I don’t hate Mitt Romney but I am certainly not a fan, which should be obvious at this point. I do hate the goddamned media for giving him an unfair advantage over the other candidates but truthfully, that isn’t his fault. Romney isn’t the absolute worst presidential choice out there, which many of my colleagues and readers may disagree with vehemently, but he is still a progressive statist bastard that is hellbent on controlling the lives of all of us in an effort to keep the giant wheel of the establishment machine rolling. I have been nasty to the guy many times in my countless diatribes about the 2012 election but my distaste and malcontent has been for a very good reason. Point being, I know that Romney can’t save this country and I feel that this is painstakingly obvious even though I find myself completely befuddled over the fanfare and support that this guy gets, not just form the media – their support is understandable, but from the conservative voting public who are all pretty much in unison behind this guy’s idea of smaller government, less taxes and squashing the budding police state. This guy will not solve any of those problems. In fact, he will only magnify them and dig our giant pit of legislative bullshit deeper and deeper. Hell, the pit is practically bottomless at this point but electing Mitt Romney will only solidify that fact even further.

I’m certainly not saying that Obama is a better choice out of the two. Realistically, I don’t think there is much difference between one or the other. This is a prime example of there being just one big government party with two wings: one that wears blue shirts with donkeys on them and one that wears red shirts with elephants on them. The worst part about this is that most “conservatives” are following Romney, as well as Gingrich and Santorum, believing in the hypocritical rhetoric that they’ve got a small government guy on their side who will fight for them. Realistically, those who support these guys are ignorant in economics and foreign policy. It is incredibly unfortunate but as Ron Paul said in a recent debate, “Conservatives have lost their way.”

Now I can’t completely cover every negative thing on Romney’s record, as there is a lot, but I am going to talk about a few points. In the end, it is really your decision as to where you want to put your vote but you really need to think this through and ask yourself where you want to be in four years. Do you want to be climbing out of the hole or do you want to be yelling at the guys that are still digging and digging?

Smaller Government:

The first thing worth getting into is definitely the issue of Mitt claiming that he’ll work towards making government smaller. Mitt Romney, who has preached for this over the course of all these debates, has a really shitty record of practicing what he’s been preaching. In reality, Mitt has been feeding into the desires of the voter base and has been stringing them along with his version of the popular rhetoric of the day. The sad thing is that many of the people who support this douchenugget are taking all this bullshit at face value and not looking at reality. Truthfully, maybe Romney actually believes his empty words and his supporters might not be adept enough to see through the Orwellian doublespeak. Let me rundown his track record of big government bullshit by ripping the fucking band-aid off: exposing the man’s economic sores.

I could write a whole damn article about the monstrosity that is Romneycare but I won’t bore you or myself with the details that have already been recycled a million times and beaten into the ground with Thor’s hammer by every critic for several years now. I’m over the Romneycare issue personally. I don’t like it, I think it’s shit, it was the blueprint for what became Obamacare but it was done at the state level, not the federal level and most Bay Staters still approve of it, so that is their economic cross to bear.

One thing that many Romney supporters don’t know or just choose to ignore is the fact that he significantly raised taxes in Massachusetts while he was governor. While preaching fiscal conservatism and pimping himself out as friendly to business, Governor Romney increased the tax bill on businesses by $300 million! He and his cronies also approved hundreds of millions of dollars worth of higher fees and fines on businesses in just four years! Many business owners were incredibly dissatisfied with Romney as governor. Essentially, corporate taxes under Romney almost doubled in just his one term.

I guess the tax hikes were necessary though, as Romney drastically increased spending in Massachusetts. In 2006, Ol’ Mittens increased spending in just that year by 7.6 percent. In 2007, he increased spending again, this time all the way up to 10.2 percent. During just his four years in office, he increased state spending by a total of 20.7 percent! That’s a lot of debt thrown on the taxpayer but at least those hefty tax hikes on corporations absorbed some of the burden. Maybe this tax burden accounts for the fact that Mitt Romney managed the 47th ranked state, out of 50, in the realm of job creation. That brings me to my next point.

Romney has been touting his job creation success while working at Bain Capital. He proudly boasts about creating corporations like Staples, Sports Authority and Steel Dynamics, all of which have created hundreds of thousands of jobs. However, as governor, unemployment was a real problem in Massachusetts. Sure, he did great in the private sector and as Romney himself has said, “Jobs are created in the private sector.” However, all of his job creation skills didn’t translate to success when he reached office. So what makes the public think that this job magician’s magic wand will suddenly work this time? Yes he is a self-professed business master but he couldn’t tap into that while running Massachusetts so essentially his trial run at it was a failure. On the issue of Romney’s job creation woes, Boston Herald business reporter Bret Arends wrote:

During the four years Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts, it had the second worst jobs record of any state in America…it wasn’t a regional issue. The rest of New England created nearly 200,000 jobs.

The question no one ever seems to ask Governor Romney is how many jobs were destroyed in an effort to build his monstrous corporations. Now I am not attacking him for building giant successful businesses, as that is the nature of the beast – good or bad. I am just trying to point out how skewed these sorts of statistical claims are because if you created say 300,000 jobs but your new businesses eliminated the jobs of say 250,000 people whose businesses you closed down through competition, well then you’ve only really created 50,000 jobs. This is a simple ballpark example but it should show you how some statistical claims can be made when you only tell one side of the story. Hell, government has been using these sorts of statistical tactics for years when releasing inaccurate numbers to sway public opinion for a candidate, a bill or whatever else they have needed public approval on.

Another issue that shows how non-small government this ass clown is, is the TARP bailouts. Mittens hates when people bring the subject up and has gone as far as lying and completely denying that he ever supported it but there is tons and tons of evidence that says otherwise. In fact, Romney was incredibly passionate about poorly run banks getting a massive taxpayer funded bonus for sucking at business. On CNN, a few years back during the bailouts, Romney said:

I think there is a need for economic stimulus. Americans have lost about $11 trillion dollars in net worth. That translates into about $400 billion dollars a year less spending that they’ll be doing, and that’s net of additional government programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance. And government can help make that up in a very difficult time. And that’s one of the reasons why I think a stimulus program is needed.

Sounds like small government to me! So why would he be so pro-big bank? Well, let’s look at his top campaign contributors from a recent list. His top contributor is Goldman Sachs who gave $354,700. Next up is Credit Suisse Group at $195,250 and Morgan Stanley at $185,800. Every other contributor in the six figures is also in the banking industry. You’ve got HIG Capital, Barclays, Kirkland & Ellis, Bank of America, PricewaterhouseCoopers, EMC Corp. & JPMorgan Chase. His top ten contributors are all fucking banks! Occupying Wall Street should start on Mitt’s front lawn! This shows a sharp contrast from Ron Paul whose top three campaign contributors are the Air Force, the Army and the Navy. Paul’s biggest contributor is also a lot less than six figures. So who really understands the plight of the average person? Romney is so far up on the Wall Street crony capitalist ladder than he can’t remember how to get down – not that he wants to.

People that call Barack Obama the Wall Street president haven’t seen anything yet. On campaign contributions from the big banks, Obama has made significantly less than Romney. Goldman Sachs gave Obama $49,124, Morgan Stanley coughed up $28,225, Bank of America gave $46,699, JPMorgan Chase came in at $38,038 and Citigroup was at $36,887. You do the math but it is obvious who the bailed out banking industry supports.

Another thing worth noting is that Romney has gotten more money from lobbyists than all other Republican candidates combined. I guess you need all that special interest money to work towards smaller government. Damn it! That Mitt Romney doublethink is taking over my brain!

The fact of the matter is, love it or hate it, Mitt Romney has a proven track record of being nothing less than one of the heads on the big government hydra. He is an economic nightmare but because people take him at his word and don’t look at his record, he can continue to dupe the masses into thinking that he’s on their side.

Mitt Romney will say anything to get elected.

Continued in Part II: Foreign Entanglements..

*Taken from the Ludwig von Mises Institute. Written by John V. Denson.

It is interesting to compare Lincoln and his treachery in causing the Southern “enemy” to fire the first shot at Fort Sumter, resulting in the Civil War, with Roosevelt’s similar manipulation causing the attack on Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II.

Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr., a well-known American “court historian,” has written the definitive defenses for both Abraham Lincoln and Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding their reprehensible behavior in causing their respective unnecessary American wars. He clearly documents the unconstitutional behavior of both and offers great praise for the same. He attempts to justify the actions of both presidents on grounds that they were acting during a “crisis” pertaining to the “survival of the American government,” and that their unconstitutional actions were thereby made “necessary.” Schlesinger has stated that “Next to the Civil War, World War II was the greatest crisis in American history.”[1] His defense of these two “great” presidents is as follows:

CONTINUED..

My Two Cents: One of the greatest articles I have ever read and I couldn’t agree more. End Two Cents.

*Taken from the Art of Manliness. Written by Brett & Kate McKay.

When it comes to manly characters in literature, my thoughts always return to one man:

Atticus Finch.

Perhaps this character from To Kill a Mockingbird seems like an unusual choice. A gentleman in a three piece suit. A widower of two kids, Jem and Scout. A man who was quiet instead of brash. Polite instead of macho. A lawyer who used his mind instead of his fists, who walked away from insults. Who didn’t gamble or smoke, who liked to walk instead drive. A man who liked nothing better than to bury himself in a book. Yes, Atticus may not seem very “manly,” at least when measured by the modern rubric for manliness.

But it is the subtly of his manliness, the way he carried himself, taught his children, made his choices, that makes his manliness all the more real, all the more potent. His manhood was not displayed in great showy acts but in quiet, consistent strength, in supreme self-possession. The manliness of Atticus Finch does not leap off the page; instead, it burrows its way inside of you, sticks with you, causes your soul to say, “Now that is the kind of man I wish to be.”

The examples of honorable manhood that can be wrung from To Kill a Mockingbird are plentiful and powerful, and today we’d like to explore just a few.

Lessons in Manliness from Atticus Finch

A man does the job no one else wants to do.

To Kill a Mockingbird unfolds against the backdrop of Atticus’s representation of Tom Robinson. Robinson, a black man, has been accused by Mayella Ewell, a white woman, of rape. While Atticus is assigned to be Robinson’s public defender by a judge, he earns the townspeople’s ire in his determination to actually defend him, honorably and fairly, to the best of his abilities.

He does the job that must be done, but that other people are unwilling and afraid to do.

Indoors, when Miss Maudie wanted to say something lengthy she spread her fingers on her knees and settled her bridgework. This she did, and we waited.

“I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them.”

“Oh,” said Jem. “Well.”

“Don’t you oh well me, sir,” Miss Maudie replied, recognizing Jem’s fatalistic noises, “you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.”

A man stands in the gap and does what must be done. Doing so earns the respect even of one’s most ardent critics; after facing a myriad of taunts and threats from his neighbors for his defense of Tom Robinson, Atticus is once more re-elected to the state legislature …unanimously.

A man lives with integrity every day.

In Maycomb County, Atticus was known as a man who was “the same in his house as he is on the public streets.” That was the standard he lived by. He did not have one set of morals for business and one for family, one for weekdays and one for weekends. He was incapable of doing anything that would broach the inviolable sanctity of his conscience. He made the honorable decision, even when that decision was unpopular.

“This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience-Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”

“Atticus, you must be wrong…”

“How’s that?”

“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong…”

“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”

Atticus understood that a man’s integrity was his most important quality-the foundation upon which his honor and the trust of others was built. Stripped of integrity, a man becomes weak and impotent, no longer a force for good in his family or community.

“If you shouldn’t be defendin’ him, then why are you doin’ it?”

“For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem to do something again.”

“You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and me wouldn’t have to mind you any more?”

“That’s about right.”

“Why?”

“Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine.”

The most important form of courage is moral courage.

There are different types of courage: physical, intellectual, and moral.

While unassuming, Atticus certainly possessed physical courage; when Tom was in jail, he sat outside all night reading and faced down an angry mob intent on lynching the prisoner.

But moral courage is arguably the most important type of bravery, and this Atticus had in spades. Moral courage involves the strength to stick with your convictions and do the right thing, even when the whole world criticizes and torments you for it. Atticus’s decision to represent Tom Robinson brought a slew of insults and threats to him and his family. But he was willing to bear the onslaught with head held high.

Moral courage also supplies the fortitude to take on a fight you know you’ll lose, simply because you believe the cause to be honorable. Atticus knows that he will lose his defense of Tom Robinson. When Scout asked him why he continued to press on, Atticus answered:

“Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win.”

Atticus used the example of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose to teach Jem the power of this kind of moral courage.

Mrs. Dubose was a sick, cantankerous old woman who would berate Jem and Scout whenever they passed by her house. Jem tried to heed his father’s counsel to be a gentleman, but finally snapped one day and tore up her flower beds. As punishment, Atticus made Jem read books to Mrs. Dubose every day after school. She hardly seemed to pay attention to his reading, and he was relieved when his sentence finally ended.

When Mrs. Dubose died soon afterwards, Atticus revealed the true nature of Jem’s assignment. She had been a morphine addict for a long time, but wanted to overcome that addiction before she left the world; Jem’s reading had been a distraction as she worked to wean herself from the drug. Atticus explained to Jem:

“Son, I told you that if you hadn’t lost your head I’d have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her-I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”

Live with quiet dignity.

Despite the fact that Bob Ewell “won” the case against Tom Robinson, he held a grudge against everyone who participated in the trial for revealing him as a base fool. After the trial, Ewell threatened Atticus’s life, grossly insulted him and spat in his face. In response, Atticus simply took out a handkerchief and wiped his face, prompting Ewell to ask:

“Too proud to fight, you nigger-lovin’ bastard?”

“No, too old,” Atticus replied before putting his hands in his pockets and walking away.

It’s often thought that the manly thing to do is answer tit for tat. But it can take greater strength to refuse to sink to another man’s level and to simply walk away with dignity. Frederick Douglass said, “A gentleman will not insult me, and no man not a gentleman can insult me.” This was a credo Atticus lived by.

Atticus’s quiet dignity was also manifested in his authentic humility.

At one point in the book, Jem and Scout feel disappointed in their father; at 50, he is older and less active than the dads of their peers. He doesn’t seem to know how to do anything “cool.” This opinion is transformed when Atticus takes down a rabid dog with a single bullet, and they learn that their father is known as the “deadest shot in Maycomb County.” Jem becomes duly impressed with his father for this display of skill, all the more so because Atticus had never felt the need to brag about his prowess.

“Atticus is real old, but I wouldn’t care if he couldn’t do anything-I wouldn’t care if he couldn’t do a blessed thing.”

Jem picked up a rock and threw it jubilantly at the carhouse. Running after it, he called back: “Atticus is a gentleman, just like me!”

Cultivating empathy is paramount.

If Atticus had one dominating virtue, it was his nearly superhuman empathy. Whenever his children felt angry at the misbehavior or ignorance of the individuals in their town, he would encourage their tolerance and respect by urging them to see the other person’s side of things:

“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Atticus understood that people could only be held responsible for what they knew, that not everyone had an ideal upbringing, that folks were doing they best they could in the circumstances in which they found themselves. Atticus strove above all to see the good in folks and to figure out why they did the things they did.

When Scout complained about her teacher embarrassing a poor student, Atticus got her to see that the teacher was new in town and couldn’t be expected to know the background of all the children in her class right away. When a poor man that Atticus had helped with legal problems showed up in the mob to hurt him and lynch Tom, Atticus defended him, explaining that he was a really good man who simply had some blind spots and got caught up in the mob mentality.

Even when Bob Ewell spit in his face, he responded with empathy:

“Jem, see if you can stand in Bob Ewell’s shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating, that’s something I’ll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody and I’d rather it be me than that houseful of children out there. You understand?”

Teach your children by example.

Atticus is probably best remembered as an exemplary father. As a widower he could have shipped his kids off to a relative, but he was absolutely devoted to them. He was kind, protective, and incredibly patient with Jem and Scout; he was firm but fair and always looking for an opportunity to expand his children’s empathy, impart a bit of wisdom, and help them become good people.

“Do you defend niggers Atticus?” I asked him that evening.

“Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.”

“’s what everybody else at school says.”

“From now on it’ll be everybody less one.”

As a father he let his kids be themselves and nurtured their unique personalities. During a freak snowstorm in Alabama, Jem, determined to build a snowman from the scant snow on the ground, hauled a bunch of dirt from the backyard to the front, molded a snowman from the mud, and then covered the mudman with a layer of snow. When Atticus arrived home, he could have been angry with the kids for messing up the lawn, but instead, he was pleased with Jem’s enterprising creativity.

“I didn’t know how you were going to do it, but from now on I’ll never worry about what’ll become of you, son, you’ll always have an idea.”

Atticus’s sister wished that tomboy Scout would wear dresses, play with tea sets, and be the “sunshine” for her father; she often hurt Scout’s feelings with her disparaging remarks. But when Scout asked her father about this criticism:

He said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go about my business, he didn’t mind me much the way I was.

And he bought her what she wanted for Christmas-an air rifle.

Most of all, Atticus taught Jem and Scout by example. He was not only always honest with them, he was honest in everything he did himself.

He not only read them the newspaper each evening, but modeled a love of reading himself. And as a result, his kids devoured every book they could get their hands on. (Modern studies actually bear the truth of this out; kids with fathers who read are more likely to read themselves).

And he not only taught his children to be courteous, he was a model of courtesy and kindness himself, even to prickly types like Mrs. Dubose:

When the three of us came to the house, Atticus would sweep off his hat, wave gallantly to her and say, “Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening.”

I never heard Atticus say like a picture of what. He would tell her the courthouse news, and would say he hoped with all his heart she’d have a good day tomorrow. He would return his hat to his head, swing me to his shoulders in her very presence, and we would go home in the twilight. It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.