Okay so I have recently come to the conclusion that there are only four types of people who are going to vote for Mitt Romney: 1. Stupid People 2. Lazy People 3. Racists 4. Greedy Rich assholes (such as Mitt Romney) or some combination of these. Now I'm not saying this to insult Republicans. I am a former Republican who left after seeing the party taken over by the ultra-conservative Tea Party and seeing them at a Ron Paul debate when he was asked what should we do with people who have been dropped by their insurance company and who now, because they have a preexisting condition, cannot obtain coverage elsewhere, shout out "Let Them Die". Now the disturbing part was not that those people exist and were at the debate spewing their hatred, it was that Ron Paul said nothing about it. Now any reasonable candidate would have chastised those people and distanced himself from those remarks, Ron Paul did not. In that moment I knew that this was no longer the political party I was apart of. I knew that the racist hate-mongering bigoted side of my party had fully taken over and I knew I didn't want any part of that. I relate my situation to the words of Charlie Crist, former Republican Governor of Florida, at the Democratic National Convention, "I didn't leave the Republican Party, the Republican Party left me". So I think that it is safe to say that the reasonable and true Republicans out there have gone my way and either decided to write in Mickey Mouse or vote for Barack Obama and that the only ones left are those who fit into the four categories I listed above.
I came to this conclusion after debating the subject with many members of my own family (I live in Tennessee so as you can imagine most of them are Republicans) as well as several friends of mine. During these many debates I was unable to get one solid reason from them as to why they are voting for Mitt Romney. They would just repeat back to me whatever mindless garbage the talking heads on Fox News (Bill O'Reilly, Shepherd Smith, etc) had recently regurgitated into their eyes and ears that day. These are the people who fall into the lazy and stupid category and the ones who infuriate me the most. I'm a pretty smart guy and as any smart guy will tell you the one thing that pisses us off the most is stupidity because we know that more often than not stupidity is a choice (barring any mental handicap of course). With the Internet, nearly everyone has the ability to access vast amounts of knowledge and information with a few strokes of the keyboard. Which leads me into the lazy part see because the only real cause for ignorance is laziness, a conscious choice to not educate yourself, or a stubbornness to ignore information because it disagrees with your ideology. My grandmother, for instance, still believes that Obama is a foreign national born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim. For those who don't know both of these things are absurd fallacies perpetuated by a party who has no moral ethics. Obama is a natural born citizen and has been vouched for by the Republican Governor of Hawaii. He is also in fact a Christian who was baptized at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. I would also like to point out that if he were in fact a "secret" Muslim like many people would claim, then him being baptized would essentially condemn him to hell under Islamic Law. Now it would be one thing if this was just a few people who believed this non-sense but according to a Gallup poll 11% of Americans (which according to the most recent census would be almost 40,000,000 people) believe that Obama is in fact a Muslim and nearly half don't know what religion he is. This vast amount of ignorance exists even though many of those Americans have access to the Internet and all it would take is just a few minutes of their time to learn the facts.
Another issue I have is when Republicans, such as Romney did last night at the first Presidential debate, blast President Obama for not being bi-partisan enough. They point out how the Affordable Care Act did not receive a single Republican vote but was passed through anyways. Now if you fit into one of the aforementioned four categories then you will take this at face value and believe that Obama hates Republicans and that therefore gives you justification to hate him (It also assuages the closeted racists' consciences so they don't have to hate him just because he is black). If you delve deeper into history however you will find this is not the case. The Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, is a bi-partisan plan and was, in fact, largely based on another bi-partisan plan that is currently in effect in Massachusetts. A plan that was enacted under the Governorship of non other than Mitt Romney. Now you may ask, "Then why didn't any Republicans vote for it?" and the answer is quite simple, because President Barack Hussein Obama proposed the bill. Don't take my word for it take it from Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) the Senate Minority Leader who said, " the single most important thing we [the Republican Party] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president". I mean I could be wrong but I thought that the single most important goal of a United States Senator was to represent his constituency in the United States Senate but I guess party policy comes before patriotic duty. How can you reach a compromise with people who have stated that it is their "single most important goal" to get you fired? The point i'm trying to make is that it is completely absurd to attack the President for a problem that you have, and are continuing, to cause. It would be like you riding in the car with your friend, punching him in the face causing him to wreck the car, and then asking him why he wasn't paying more attention. None of the information I have quoted here is secret or hidden. It is all freely available on the Internet and quite frankly not all that difficult to find. There is, therefore, no reasonable excuse as to why anyone should not know about this information other than laziness and stupidity.
Now before people start to believe that I agree with the President on everything I will tell you I do not. I do not agree with Obama signing the National Defense Authorization Act which grants authorities the ability to hold US citizens indefinitely without cause. I do not like the fact that he sits idly by as peaceful Occupy protesters are beaten and arrested while exercising their 1st Amendment Right. These are all things I find unacceptable but to me the primary difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is that Obama actually wants to help this country while Romney's goal is right in line with his party's of limiting the President to a single term and everything that he says and does is in service to that all consuming goal. I have a hard time believing Romney wants to help whenever he tells people at a fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida that he doesn't care about 47% of Americans because he feels that they are all leeches on the system who dare ask that the government help provide them with affordable food, healthcare, and housing; as if Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness were unalienable, God given rights. As if to secure these rights governments were instituted amongst men and derive their power from the consent of the governed. These beliefs are all nonsensical to Romney. I find it difficult to trust a man whose beliefs change to fit the beliefs of those he is addressing. I find it hard to trust a man who won't follow a precedent set by his own father and release 10 years worth of tax returns. I find it hard to trust a man who hides his money in tax havens to avoid his duty as a citizen of the United States of America to contribute his fair share. I find it hard to trust a man whose idea of good business practice is too lay off thousands of employees and ship their jobs overseas. I find it hard to put faith in a man who speaks before he thinks to other countries, some of whom are our closest ally's. Last but most certainly not least, I absolutely cannot believe in a man who thinks that it is okay to let Americans who cannot afford healthcare die simply because they are poor. It is not befitting of any empathetic human being with any sense of common decency and I believe shows the character of not only Mitt Romney but also the party to which he represents.
I came to this conclusion after debating the subject with many members of my own family (I live in Tennessee so as you can imagine most of them are Republicans) as well as several friends of mine. During these many debates I was unable to get one solid reason from them as to why they are voting for Mitt Romney. They would just repeat back to me whatever mindless garbage the talking heads on Fox News (Bill O'Reilly, Shepherd Smith, etc) had recently regurgitated into their eyes and ears that day. These are the people who fall into the lazy and stupid category and the ones who infuriate me the most. I'm a pretty smart guy and as any smart guy will tell you the one thing that pisses us off the most is stupidity because we know that more often than not stupidity is a choice (barring any mental handicap of course). With the Internet, nearly everyone has the ability to access vast amounts of knowledge and information with a few strokes of the keyboard. Which leads me into the lazy part see because the only real cause for ignorance is laziness, a conscious choice to not educate yourself, or a stubbornness to ignore information because it disagrees with your ideology. My grandmother, for instance, still believes that Obama is a foreign national born in Kenya and is a secret Muslim. For those who don't know both of these things are absurd fallacies perpetuated by a party who has no moral ethics. Obama is a natural born citizen and has been vouched for by the Republican Governor of Hawaii. He is also in fact a Christian who was baptized at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. I would also like to point out that if he were in fact a "secret" Muslim like many people would claim, then him being baptized would essentially condemn him to hell under Islamic Law. Now it would be one thing if this was just a few people who believed this non-sense but according to a Gallup poll 11% of Americans (which according to the most recent census would be almost 40,000,000 people) believe that Obama is in fact a Muslim and nearly half don't know what religion he is. This vast amount of ignorance exists even though many of those Americans have access to the Internet and all it would take is just a few minutes of their time to learn the facts.
Another issue I have is when Republicans, such as Romney did last night at the first Presidential debate, blast President Obama for not being bi-partisan enough. They point out how the Affordable Care Act did not receive a single Republican vote but was passed through anyways. Now if you fit into one of the aforementioned four categories then you will take this at face value and believe that Obama hates Republicans and that therefore gives you justification to hate him (It also assuages the closeted racists' consciences so they don't have to hate him just because he is black). If you delve deeper into history however you will find this is not the case. The Affordable Care Act, aka ObamaCare, is a bi-partisan plan and was, in fact, largely based on another bi-partisan plan that is currently in effect in Massachusetts. A plan that was enacted under the Governorship of non other than Mitt Romney. Now you may ask, "Then why didn't any Republicans vote for it?" and the answer is quite simple, because President Barack Hussein Obama proposed the bill. Don't take my word for it take it from Senator Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) the Senate Minority Leader who said, " the single most important thing we [the Republican Party] want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president". I mean I could be wrong but I thought that the single most important goal of a United States Senator was to represent his constituency in the United States Senate but I guess party policy comes before patriotic duty. How can you reach a compromise with people who have stated that it is their "single most important goal" to get you fired? The point i'm trying to make is that it is completely absurd to attack the President for a problem that you have, and are continuing, to cause. It would be like you riding in the car with your friend, punching him in the face causing him to wreck the car, and then asking him why he wasn't paying more attention. None of the information I have quoted here is secret or hidden. It is all freely available on the Internet and quite frankly not all that difficult to find. There is, therefore, no reasonable excuse as to why anyone should not know about this information other than laziness and stupidity.
Now before people start to believe that I agree with the President on everything I will tell you I do not. I do not agree with Obama signing the National Defense Authorization Act which grants authorities the ability to hold US citizens indefinitely without cause. I do not like the fact that he sits idly by as peaceful Occupy protesters are beaten and arrested while exercising their 1st Amendment Right. These are all things I find unacceptable but to me the primary difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney is that Obama actually wants to help this country while Romney's goal is right in line with his party's of limiting the President to a single term and everything that he says and does is in service to that all consuming goal. I have a hard time believing Romney wants to help whenever he tells people at a fundraiser in Boca Raton, Florida that he doesn't care about 47% of Americans because he feels that they are all leeches on the system who dare ask that the government help provide them with affordable food, healthcare, and housing; as if Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness were unalienable, God given rights. As if to secure these rights governments were instituted amongst men and derive their power from the consent of the governed. These beliefs are all nonsensical to Romney. I find it difficult to trust a man whose beliefs change to fit the beliefs of those he is addressing. I find it hard to trust a man who won't follow a precedent set by his own father and release 10 years worth of tax returns. I find it hard to trust a man who hides his money in tax havens to avoid his duty as a citizen of the United States of America to contribute his fair share. I find it hard to trust a man whose idea of good business practice is too lay off thousands of employees and ship their jobs overseas. I find it hard to put faith in a man who speaks before he thinks to other countries, some of whom are our closest ally's. Last but most certainly not least, I absolutely cannot believe in a man who thinks that it is okay to let Americans who cannot afford healthcare die simply because they are poor. It is not befitting of any empathetic human being with any sense of common decency and I believe shows the character of not only Mitt Romney but also the party to which he represents.