This pretty much sums up the mentality of the pro-Romneyite on FR. Forget all that jazz about "principles" and "conservatism" and whatnot. People just dislike Romney 'cause he's a Mormon. That's the only reason. No other reason exists.
Sure.
But how does somebody reason or communicate with someone who actually believes that? Seriously, how is communication with them even possible? If you have somebody who is willing to completely dismiss everything that somebody actually says about why they don't support Romney, and instead chalks it up to "they don't like Mormons," and makes this their vehilc for argumentation, then it's quite obvious that this person is beyond the help of reason. Such a person is an idiot - in the true and historical sense of the word. They are simply so wrapped up in themselves that they can't even begin to comprehend, much less fully understand, the motivations of other people. They're like the severely autistic child who exists in his own personal fact-space, a bubble cut off from the rest of the world.
I can understand why the people who have finlandised and chosen to support Romney have done so. I disagree with them, but I can understand their motivations. I can understand that they really and truly believe the naive proposition that Romney is significantly different than Obama, that he would be somehow "better" than Obama, or in the very least that somehow Romney, at least, would be "controllable" by the Right if he can be placed into office alongside a GOP-controlled Congressand Senate. Again, these are wrongheaded arguments with not a lick of actual evidence to support them, but I can understand why Romney supports make them. I don't simply assume that it's because they hate whatever religion it is that Virgil Goode belongs to.
It's sad to see the pro-Romney people on here forcing themselves to twist up their own mental realities to try to forcibly imprint "Romney is actually okay" onto the actual reality, which is that Romney is nothing more than a progressive who essentially holds the same worldview as Obama, and whose actual record shows that he has staked out largely the same positions as Obama. I realise that the Romney campaign shook the etch-a-sketch, and he now is having to pretend to take some conservative positions on his campaign website and whatnot, but as we've already been told by his own people, the etch-a-sketch will be shaken once again if he actually manages to beat his fellow progressive socialist. You folks who are expecting to have any leverage on Romney, or who even genuinely believe that he's turned over a new leaf are naive. I really and truly wish I had some beachfront property in Wyoming to sell you, because I'd make a bundle.
Especially Betty Boop, it's saddening to see the loop-de-loops to which you will resort to try to put a smiley face sticker on Romney's record. You don't seriously believe the nonsense you've written in your defences of him, do you? If so, then again, I wish I had that land to sell.
For those who have enough principles to not support Romney, for those who still actually care about the direction of the country instead of just getting Team R into office instead of Team D, I would urge you all to just ignore the pro-Romney people. Seriously. Reason doesn't work with them. Ideological appeal fails with them. Might as well spend your time more productively in searching out other people who don't like the current options. They're out there. I talk with a lot of people, and have not seen a mood like this for a long time, where conservatives, especially of the NON-Republican type, are turned off so strongly by both major party candidates. Supposedly conservative FReepers can spend their days convincing themselves that Romney's not really that bad - there are a lot of real, flesh-and-blood people out there who are not beholden to the GOP and who disagree. Let's reach them, instead of wasting our time on social autists.
Excellent post.
I personally don’t have any issues with mormons. Mitt Romney on the other hand has used Obama style manipulations and insults to get where he is.
His loss will be his own fault.
It seems to me that one resorts to ad hominum arguments when one doesn't have any better argument. You aren't responding to your opponents in a rational fashion; you simply trash them.
She has actually lived in Mass while Romney was governor and has applied her knoweldge and experience to the equation and reached her conclusions. And you have the nerve and audacity to call here "socailly autistic?" To sarcastically indicate that her posts are nothing more than "loop de loops" trying to rationalize a vote for Romney when she doesn't "seriously believe the nonsense she's written," in effect calling her a liar?
Howgwash and absolute Bravo Sierra.
Let me quote your own words back to you, with just a couple of changes...changes susbstituting your own words again in your own earlier quote:
...how does somebody reason or communicate with someone who actually believes that? Seriously, how is communication with them even possible? If you have somebody who is willing to completely dismiss everything that somebody actually says about why they support Romney, and instead chalks it up to "loop de loops" and "social autusts"
You seem to be pretty good at doing the exact type of thing you accuse others of.
Fact is Betty Boop, as a very strong conservative behind enemey lines in Mass lived under the Romney governorship and she has some prtetty pointed things to say about it that do not happen to agree with the stereotype and absolute nature of the comments being made about Romney.
She has laid out why so many (not all) of the decisions that wre made in Mass simply had to be made that way because of the fact that the Mass legislature (and people) have hamstrung the governor as they have.
In addition to all that she has said, that perhaps, because of her longstanding reputation, we would be well served to consider, I personally know people in Mass who know the Romney's and attended church in the areas where he was an LDS leader...and they too, though they are very conservative and loyal Americans and do not support a number of positions that Romney has taken in the past, indicate that he is a good man, a loyal American, and a person of high moral integrity.
(I know this means that I am LDS and can easily be written off by you or others as "well, he's Mormon, what do you expect?") in the same manner you accuse others of writing counter arguements off because people don't like Mormons. So don't let that knife cut both ways...let's not let it cut at all. When it came time to vote in caucuses herein Idaho in the first round I voted for Santorum and in the second round (in our county) I voted for Newt. NEwt lost and ROmney won on that second ballot.
Fact is, Romney has a platform and set of issues he's been running on now for 5 or 6 years. They are written down. If he wins, it is what he will do. Based on what Betty Boop (whom I know and respect greatly) has told me, based on what my own personal friends have told me, based on his own statements in his campaign, it is clear that Rommney is running to define marriage as between a single man and woman, that he is not for gay marriage, that he is running as a pro-life candidate, that he intends to strengthen America's military and foreign policy, that he intends to repeal Obama Care, that he intends to drastically cut spending by the Federal Government (including gutting Planned Parenthood) and that he intends to balance the budget, to cut federal government regulation and corporate and personal taxes, and to get the free market economic engine running again.
These are the things he says he will do, and they are based on the changes he says he has made. And they are all good things.
I have a lot of people here pointing to things he has said and done in the past and trying to convince me that he still is what he was...that he has not changed...that he is only paying lip service and that he is, in essence ieing. The fact is, some of the things he says today I clearly do not agree with.
But, balanced against that I know people now who lived under his governance who say things (like betty whom I trust impeccably) which indicate he wasn't nearly as bad as he is painted out to be. I know people who know him personally who I trust impeccably who say he is a good man, family wise, community wise, and integrity wise...who know him personally in his daily walk. I personally have studied his record, the way things were organized in Mass, his vetoes (and everyone really should look at the things he tried to veto), and although there is a lot about his record I do not agree with, and there are things he says today that I do not agree with, based on all of this and what he is actually running on (as you say what he is actually saying), I must conclude that he would clearly be orders of magnitudse better for the Republic than Obama.
Still, he is by no means the perfect, or close to the perfect conservative candidate.
But the fact is, given the organization, given the ballots of the fifty states, given the dollars available, there is NO ONE who could possibly defeat Barack Obama in November other than Mitt Romney. Sorry, but that is the fact...that is the pragmatic, realistic situation we are in.
So I will vote for him because I will do nothing by my action or inaction to give Obama another four years where he is willfully and very quickly doing all in his power and quite a ferw things that are not delegated to him in pwoer that he is doing anyway, to destroy this Republic.
Romney is doing no such thing. He is not planning to do any such thing, and in fact what he is running on is actually a pretty good conservative platform when you just let it stand on its own. Given the totality of my own experiences, studies, and information from people I trust and respect, I do not expect a victorious Romney to be liberal or progressive, I expect he will be much further towrds conservative than all of this mantra suggests, and I believe a House and Senate in the majority with a lot more Tea Party candidates will deliver up the legislation for him to sign that keeps it that way.
we have absolutely no chance of that with Obama and the simple fact is if it is not Romney then it will be Obama.
So, I will vote for and support Romney and pray to God in HEaven that Obama can be defeated and that a Romney administration, coupled with the majority House and Senate will turn the nation away from the precipice and start to get us back on firm footing. I believe they will if we elect them and that is what I am going to do all in my power to accomplish.
Their mantra is "free speech for me but not for thee".
Put on your flame-proof undies, as you will be attacked not only for your words, but for your audacity in daring to post them.
This is the MittBots answer to Jim's "truce"...they have taken it as a complete surrender by him. They see FR as another link in the Romney PR campaign.