Posted on 09/25/2012 4:35:40 AM PDT by Kaslin
Over the last few months, it has been absolutely stunning to see Mitt Romney, of all people, portrayed as some sort of greedy, ruthless, unfeeling corporate raider who plows over everyone who gets in his way so he can make a few dollars more. Of all the criticisms you could aim at Mitt Romney, there is none that has less validity than that one. In fact, the vast majority of people who read this column -- whether they're liberal, conservative, or moderate -- probably don't personally know a single person who has proven to be more generous and compassionate than Mitt Romney. Yes, really. It's okay if you're skeptical -- but, you won't be after you finish reading this column.
1) Mitt Romney saved the life of a 14 year old girl: Imagine what it would be like if we could have this kind of decisive people-centered leadership in the White House..
In 1998 the 14-year-old daughter of one of Romney's partners at Bain Capital, Robin Gay, had disappeared after attending a rave party in New York City. The distraught father was beside himself with terror of what may have happened to his little girl.Upon hearing of this, Romney stopped all operations at Bain and flew himself and all of the company's employees to New York to conduct the search. Using his contacts with establishments in New York that did business with Bain and an outlay of cash, Romney led a search for the girl from a command post he had set up in the LaGuardia Marriott that involved a private detective, Bain employees and customers putting up posters, handing out flyers, and interviewing prostitutes, drug addicts, and other street people in New York, and coordination with the New York Police.
A break came, after media publicity of the search, when a teenage boy called a tip line asking if there was a reward. He hung up, but not before the police traced the call to a home in New Jersey. The girl was found in the basement of the house undergoing withdraws from a hit of ecstasy.
Romney, through his efforts, had saved the girl's life.
2) Mitt Romney gave milk to a V.A. hospital: This is the kind of thing Mitt Romney has done for people in need who cross his path.
He shared a story of a V.A. hospital in Boston that Mitt Romney stopped at while on the campaign trail running against Ted Kennedy. Ted Kennedy had made a thirty minute stop at the same location a couple of weeks prior.After touring the V.A. hospital, Mitt asked to look at their books. After he spent forty minutes going through their books, he told them, “You run a very good place, very tight. Very good.” Romney asked to go on another tour of the hospital, and after spending an hour and forty minutes there, the last question he asked was, “So what… what do you -- what are you lacking? What do you need help with?”
The response? “Milk.”
Since the press was around, snapping photos and asking questions, Glenn explained that Romney did a really awkward joke where he said, “maybe we should teach everyone here how to milk a cow.”
Of course, that’s all the press cared to hear and ran with a story that claims “Mitt Romney says veterans should have to milk cows.”
“This is where it gets good,” Glenn started. “Romney calls him up the next morning.”
Romney first apologizes to the man who runs the hospital for any problems the attention from the press jumping on his words brought to the hospital. He next offers to help with the milk situation.
“Friday comes, and the milkman comes,” Glenn continues. “This is what the vets needed – they needed 7,000 pints of milk a week. Milkman shows up, 7,000 pints. The head of the V.A. hospital asks, ‘Where did all this come from?’ He [the milkman] said ‘an anonymous donor.’ Now, the guy didn’t put it together.”
Glenn explains that when the next week rolled around, the milkman shows up again, and continued to show up every week for two years. After two years of delivering 7,000 pints of milk a week to the hospital, as the milkman is retiring, the man finally gets him to reveal the anonymous donor.
It’s Mitt Romney.
“Mitt Romney was writing a personal check and didn’t want anybody to know for two years and provided the vets with all of their milk in Boston,” Glenn explained to listeners this morning.
When Romney became governor, he sent a bill through to help the V.A. hospital – it was down to the dollar.
3) Mitt Romney helped a dying 14 year old boy write his will: In a profession filled with people who steal the credit for every good thing that happens and pass the buck at every opportunity, Mitt Romney's humility -- which is a wonderful trait in a human being, but a maladaptive one in a politician -- has kept him from hammering home stories like this home in every swing state.
Pat Oparowski talks about the loving friendship Mitt Romney developed with her dying son David, remembering,"David, knowing Mitt had gone to law school at Harvard, asked Mitt if he would help him write a will. He had some prize possessions that he wanted to make sure were given to his closest friends and family. The next time Mitt went to the hospital, he was equipped with his yellow legal pad and pen. Together, they made David’s will. That is a task that no child should ever have to do. But it gave David peace of mind. So after David’s death, we were able to give his skateboard, his model rockets, and his fishing gear to his best friends. He also made it clear that his brother Peter should get his Ruger .22 rifle. How many men do you know who would take the time out of their busy lives to visit a terminally ill 14 year old and help him settle his affairs?"
David also helped us plan his funeral. He wanted to be buried in his Boy Scout uniform. He wanted Mitt to pronounce his eulogy, and Mitt was there to honor that request. We will be ever grateful to Mitt for his love and concern.”
Ted Oparowski summed it up nicely when he said,
"You cannot measure a man’s character based on the words he utters before adoring crowds during times that are happy. The true measure of a man is revealed in his actions during times of trouble — the quiet hospital room of a dying boy, with no cameras and no reporters."
4) At one point, Mitt Romney was doing 10-20 hours a week of volunteer church service: At the Republican National Convention, Mitt Romney's friend and fellow church member Grant Bennett talked about the work Mitt Romney did at their church.
While raising his family and pursuing his career, Mitt Romney served in our church, devoting 10, 15, and even 20 hours a week doing so. ...Drawing on the skills and resources of those in our congregation, Mitt provided food and housing, rides to the doctor, and companions to sit with those who were ill. He shoveled snow and raked leaves for the elderly. He took down tables and swept floors at church dinners. He was often the last to leave. Mitt challenged each of us to find our life by losing it in service to others. He issued that challenge again and again.
What do you think the chances are that the current occupant of the White House would voluntarily shovel snow and rake leaves for the elderly without any television cameras around?
5) Pam Finlayson talks about how Mitt Romney treated her family and her extremely ill child: Pam Finlayson gave one of the finest speeches at the Republican National Convention when she talked about how Mitt Romney had treated her child and her family.
Later, when Finlayson and her husband Grant had a baby girl born dangerously premature, the man who decades later would stand at the threshold of the presidency was a steady and supportive presence at the hospital.“Kate was so tiny and very sick,” Finlayson recalled. “Her lungs not yet ready to breathe, her heart unstable, and after suffering a severe brain hemorrhage at three days old, she was teetering on the very edge of life.”
“As I sat with her in intensive care, consumed with a mother’s worry and fear, dear Mitt came to visit and pray with me,” she continued, as the partisan crowd listened in rapt silence. “I will never forget that when he looked down tenderly at my daughter, his eyes filled with tears, and he reached out gently and stroked her tiny back.”
“I could tell immediately that he didn’t just see a tangle of plastic and tubes; he saw our beautiful little girl, and he was clearly overcome with compassion for her.”
The little girl was slated for surgery around Thanksgiving, and Finlayson recalled Romney and his sons showing up with a Thanksgiving feast for the preoccupied parents. Finlayson said she later learned from Ann Romney that the food had been prepared by her husband.
Kate Finlayson survived, and the two families remained close, said Finlayson, who even babysat for the five “rambunctious” Romney sons before the family moved from Boston.
Last year, Kate Finlayson died at age 26 from complications she’d battled from birth, her mom said. And although Romney was in the midst of preparing his bid for the presidency, they remembered their old friends in yet another hour of anguish.
“When they heard of Kate’s passing, both Mitt and Ann paused, to personally reach out to extend us sympathy, and express their love,” Finlayson said.
“When the world looks at Mitt Romney, they see him as the founder of a successful business, the leader of the Olympics, or a governor,” she said. “When I see Mitt, I know him to be a loving father, man of faith and caring and compassionate friend."
6) Mitt Romney and his sons saved a family and their dog from drowning: Mitt Romney saw people in trouble and he didn't wait for the government to save them, he made a REAL gutsy call, and did what he had to do to save their lives.
But way back in the summer of 2003, the then-Massachusetts governor made the news for a very different reason: He helped save a Tewksbury family from drowning in New Hampshire’s Lake Winnipesaukee.The Morrisseys of Tewksbury were motoring their vintage wooden boat through the large lake on July 4 weekend that year when, around sunset and about 300 yards from shore, the vessel began taking on water. Robert Morrissey attempted to dial 911 on his cell phone, only to lose the device in the water as the boat started sinking rapidly.
That’s when Romney, who owns a home on the shore of the lake, and two of his sons jumped on jet skis and rode out to assist the six people, along with the family dog, struggling in the water.
The Romneys took two of the passengers ashore, and others in the area helped the rest of the family—and the dog, too — make it back to land without injury.
7) Mitt Romney pays for the college education of two boys who were left as quadriplegics after a car wreck: As you read this, imagine how you'd feel about Mitt Romney if you were Mark and Sheryl Nixon. Americans would be fortunate to have someone like Mitt Romney doing his best to try to help them.
Mark and Sheryl Nixon, along with their sons Reed and Rob and their daughter Natalie, told of a car accident that left Reed and Rob quadriplegics. Although the Nixon family knew of Romney and Romney had served as their Mormon stake president, they weren't well acquainted.Reed and Rob returned home from rehab in the late fall, near Christmas, Mark said. Around that time, Romney called and said he'd like to do something for the two boys. So Romney, his wife Ann, and three of their sons brought Christmas gifts to the family.
While Romney later offered to pay for Reed and Rob's entire college education, that Christmas Eve visit stands out in Mark's mind, he said, because instead of vacationing in Utah, New England or the Caribbean, the Romney family was visiting the needy.
"That actually, to me, has been more important to me than the financial help he gave," Mark said.
"After the initial experience of showing up, he didn't check that off his list and say, 'I did my duty,'" Natalie added. "He has, year after year, shown up at 5K races to run the event and participate."
Aren’t you a nice advertisement for the MORMON church!
You should see what Brigham Young has said about those 'mormons' who do NOT follow what their scripture says!
Over at DU, they are screaming at those who are not going to vote for Obama again,
"A vote for anyone but Obama is a vote for romney. GO BARAK!!"
Concerning the VA hospital milk Romney donated, Beck was, shall we say, exaggerating the truth when he said his people “dug up” this story. The account has been documented for quite a while now in the book “The Real Romney.”
Not in your league as a so called christian. I used the lower case 'c' so as not to confuse what you are with real Christians.
So, are you saying that you’d rather have Obamination enjoy ANOTHER four years to destroy America while waging war against all Christians, versus Romney who would at least slow the destruction down?
Do you spew this sort of hatred against Buddhists, Hindus, Bapterinas and Presbytists and all other forms of religion that do not conform to your personal beliefs?
s
Your form of bigotry and closed mindedness is what jutified the past “delightful Christian activities” like the Spanish Inquisition and the slaughter called the “Crusades” and in the end does more harm to liberty and freedom than Occupy Wall Street does.
Yes. We get it. You don’t want to vote in a Mormon. What solution do you propose to this problem, then? GIVE US YOUR PLAN FOR A SOLUTION. Tell us how you think that we’re going to get into a better situation than the one that we’re in! If it makes sense, I’ll get behind you and push for it whole-heartedly.
But if you can’t come up with an idea, then tell us who would be the better President of the United States. And don’t give me that crap about them both being the same.
TELL ME WHAT YOU PLAN TO DO THIS ELECTION, OTHER THAN COMPLAIN ABOUT ROMNEY. If you plan to sit out, TELL ME HOW THIS WILL HELP THE NATION.
You are so FOS, you slosh when you walk!
No kidding, why do we have to suffer with these so-called “christians” here on FR? They need to head on over to DU. They are a collective disgrace on these pages with all their bible-thumping piety. They can all go to Hell!
Wow!
How on earth do YOU justify pointing out that getting a RUNAWAY back home is NOT 'saving her life' is equivalenat to HATRED?
Is your skin REALLY as thin as a rabid MUSLIM?
You 'got' that from my pointing out that...
(See above)
You guys are really wound tight today!
Did someone point y'all toward a YouTube about the liar, Joseph Smith?
Awhhhww...
ain't you the sweetheart though...
What???
Where’s the STUMP story???
http://www.pomeradonews.com/2012/05/30/rb-man-recalls-the-day-mitt-romney-stopped-by-to-lend-a-hand/
Golly!
If’fn I wuz a MORMON; they’d be trying to excommulicate me about now.
But since I ain’t....
I have seldom seen religious intolerance at the levels in evidence by the “so-called Christian Right” on FR. They (You) make a mockery of Christ’s teachings by your invective against anyone who doesn’t buy your version of Christianity. I don’t agree with some of what Mitt Romney believes, and he was not my choice to be our nominee. That said, he’s a decent man and deserves to be respected. He certainly is a breath of fresh air by comparison to Obama. As the scriptures say “ by your works so shall ye be known.” So we know where that puts hate merchants like you Elsie! Now go back to your double wide and fry something!
Here is my post on that thread:
Harry Reid and his arrogant and dictator-like interpretation of what it means to be an elected servant/representative of "the People," under the People's written Constitution is shameful and does not reflect well either on his personal concept of citizenship or his religious faith.
On the other hand, another man of the LDS faith wrote many books on America's founding principles, one of which is entitled, "The 5000 Year Leap." If one reads the following summary of those principles, then one must conclude that Reid clearly would be in disagreement with that fellow LDS member also:
From the web site:
"These beliefs have made possible more progress in 200 years than was made previously in over 5,000 years. Thus the title "The 5,000 Year Leap".
"The following is a brief overview of the principles found in The 5,000 Year Leap, and one chapter is devoted to each of these 28 principles.
Principle 1 - The only reliable basis for sound government and just human relations is Natural Law.
Natural law is God's law. There are certain laws which govern the entire universe, and just as Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, there are laws which govern in the affairs of men which are "the laws of nature and of nature's God."
Principle 2 - A free people cannot survive under a republican constitution unless they remain virtuous and morally strong.
"Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters." - Benjamin Franklin
Principle 3 - The most promising method of securing a virtuous people is to elect virtuous leaders.
"Neither the wisest constitution nor the wisest laws will secure the liberty and happiness of a people whose manners are universally corrupt. He therefore is the truest friend to the liberty of his country who tries most to promote its virtue, and who ... will not suffer a man to be chosen into any office of power and trust who is not a wise and virtuous man." - Samuel Adams
Principle 4 - Without religion the government of a free people cannot be maintained.
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports.... And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion." - George Washington
Principle 5 - All things were created by God, therefore upon him all mankind are equally dependent, and to him they are equally responsible .
The American Founding Fathers considered the existence of the Creator as the most fundamental premise underlying all self-evident truth. They felt a person who boasted he or she was an atheist had just simply failed to apply his or her divine capacity for reason and observation.
Principle 6 - All mankind were created equal.
The Founders knew that in these three ways, all mankind are theoretically treated as:
- Equal before God.
- Equal before the law.
- Equal in their rights.
Principle 7 - The proper role of government is to protect equal rights, not provide equal things.
The Founders recognized that the people cannot delegate to their government any power except that which they have the lawful right to exercise themselves.
Principle 8 - Mankind are endowed by God with certain unalienable rights.
"Those rights, then, which God and nature have established, and are therefore called natural rights, such as are life and liberty, need not the aid of human laws to be more effectually invested in every man than they are; neither do they receive any additional strength when declared by the municipal [or state] laws to be inviolable. On the contrary, no human legislation has power to abridge or destroy them, unless the owner [of the right] shall himself commit some act that amounts to a forfeiture." - William Blackstone
Principle 9 - To protect human rights, God has revealed a code of divine law.
"The doctrines thus delivered we call the revealed or divine law, and they are to be found only in the Holy Scriptures. These precepts, when revealed, are found by comparison to be really a part of the original law of nature, as they tend in all their consequences to man's felicity." - William Blackstone
Principle 10 - The God-given right to govern is vested in the sovereign authority of the whole people.
"The fabric of American empire ought to rest on the solid basis of the consent of the people. The streams of national power ought to flow immediately from that pure, original fountain of all legislative authority." - Alexander Hamilton
Principle 11 - The majority of the people may alter or abolish a government which has become tyrannical.
"Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes ... but when a long train of abuses and usurpations ... evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security." - Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence
Principle 12 - The United States of America shall be a republic.
"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America
And to the republic for which it stands...."
Principle 13 - A Constitution should protect the people from the frailties of their rulers.
"If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.... [But lacking these] you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." - James Madison
Principle 14 - Life and liberty are secure only so long as the rights of property are secure .
John Locke reasoned that God gave the earth and everything in it to the whole human family as a gift. Therefore the land, the sea, the acorns in the forest, the deer feeding in the meadow belong to everyone "in common." However, the moment someone takes the trouble to change something from its original state of nature, that person has added his ingenuity or labor to make that change. Herein lies the secret to the origin of "property rights."
Principle 15 - The highest level of prosperity occurs when there is a free-market economy and a minimum of government regulations.
Prosperity depends upon a climate of wholesome stimulation with four basic freedoms in operation:
- The Freedom to try.
- The Freedom to buy.
- The Freedom to sell.
- The Freedom to fail.
Principle 16 - The government should be separated into three branches .
"I call you to witness that I was the first member of the Congress who ventured to come out in public, as I did in January 1776, in my Thoughts on Government ... in favor of a government with three branches and an independent judiciary. This pamphlet, you know, was very unpopular. No man appeared in public to support it but yourself." - John Adams
Principle 17 - A system of checks and balances should be adopted to prevent the abuse of power by the different branches of government.
"It will not be denied that power is of an encroaching nature and that it ought to be effectually restrained from passing the limits assigned to it." - James Madison
Principle 18 - The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written Constitution.
The structure of the American system is set forth in the Constitution of the United States and the only weaknesses which have appeared are those which were allowed to creep in despite the Constitution.
Principle 19 - Only limited and carefully defined powers should be delegated to government, all others being retained by the people.
The Tenth Amendment is the most widely violated provision of the bill of rights. If it had been respected and enforced America would be an amazingly different country than it is today. This amendment provides:
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Principle 20 - Efficiency and dispatch require that the government operate according to the will of the majority, but constitutional provisions must be made to protect the rights of the minority.
"Every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation to every one of that society to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded [bound] by it." - John Locke
Principle 21 - Strong local self-government is the keystone to preserving human freedom.
"The way to have good and safe government is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent [to perform best]. - Thomas Jefferson
Principle 22 - A free people should be governed by law and not by the whims of men.
"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings, capable of laws, where there is no law there is no freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence of others, which cannot be where there is no law." - John Locke
Principle 23 - A free society cannot survive as a republic without a broad program of general education.
"They made an early provision by law that every town consisting of so many families should be always furnished with a grammar school. They made it a crime for such a town to be destitute of a grammar schoolmaster for a few months, and subjected it to a heavy penalty. So that the education of all ranks of people was made the care and expense of the public, in a manner that I believe has been unknown to any other people, ancient or modern. The consequences of these establishments we see and feel every day [written in 1765]. A native of America who cannot read and write is as rare ... as a comet or an earthquake." John Adams
Principle 24 - A free people will not survive unless they stay strong.
"To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace." - George Washington
Principle 25 - "Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations -- entangling alliances with none."- Thomas Jefferson, given in his first inaugural address.
Principle 26 - The core unit which determines the strength of any society is the family; therefore the government should foster and protect its integrity.
"There is certainly no country in the world where the tie of marriage is more respected than in America, or where conjugal happiness is more highly or worthily appreciated." Alexis de Tocqueville
Principle 27 - The burden of debt is as destructive to human freedom as subjugation by conquest.
"We are bound to defray expenses [of the war] within our own time, and are unauthorized to burden posterity with them.... We shall all consider ourselves morally bound to pay them ourselves and consequently within the life [expectancy] of the majority." - Thomas Jefferson
Principle 28 - The United States has a manifest destiny to eventually become a glorious example of God's law under a restored Constitution that will inspire the entire human race.
The Founders sensed from the very beginning that they were on a divine mission. Their great disappointment was that it didn't all come to pass in their day, but they knew that someday it would. John Adams wrote:
"I always consider the settlement of America with reverence and wonder, as the opening of a grand scene and design in Providence for the illumination of the ignorant, and the emancipation of the slavish part of mankind all over the earth."
Answer my question. What do you want us to do about it?
“he’s a decent man and deserves to be respected. He certainly is a breath of fresh air by comparison to Obama.”
If you hadn’t said it, I would have. Thanks for saying it. I vote for character and competence. Romney has both. Obama has neither. I’ve never heard of one altruistic act on Obama’s part. Not one.
How any ‘so-called Christian’ can vote for Obama or mock Romney’s good heartedness defies my understanding. Democrats voted God out of their platform for God’s sake. Yes, I did mean that play on words.
I don’t mind their piety, in fact i think piety is admirable. But I don’t understand why they feel it’s necessary to denigrate a good man because they don’t agree with his religion. Romney’s not perfect but he’s a dmaned sight better than obama!
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