Why would a "principled" electorate remove one man for office only to replace him with someone just as unprincipled?
Seriously, you talk about him launching a full-scale attack on the Bill of Rights - and he has - but don't forget that Romney supported the federal assault weapons ban and the Brady bill, signed into law a state-level assault weapons ban modeled after the federal law, quadrupled gun licensing fees making it that much more onerous for MA citizens to exercise their right to keep and bear arms, and promised not to chip away at MA's gun law regime when he was running for governour. This is the man who called Clinton's crime bill - which included a lot of anti-gun language - "a big step forward."
So right there, Romney's not so hot on the 2nd amendment.
Romney pushed for stricter campaign finance reform laws for over a decade. He's argued for a 10% tax on political donations. He's proposed spending caps and abolishing PACs. He was once described by Ramesh Ponnuru as being "to the left of McCain-Feingold" on this issue. So his history on freedom of speech isn't so good, either.
And then, of course, there was his administration's decision to require Catholic hospitals to provide abortiofacients to rape victims, contrary to their religious convictions (and remember, this is one of the areas where Obama has also been criticised for undermining of 1st amendment rights). So he's not that great on freedom of religion as well.
So again, what makes you think Romney's really going to be any better on BoR issues than Obama? Your "gut instinct"?
Will Romney do anything to roll back the TSA, VIPR, etc. attacks on our 4th amendment rights? Will he do anything to halt the infringements upon our natural liberties today, ranging even to things like whether we can buy fresh milk and home-grown vegetables from our neighbours? If so, then on what evidence are you basing this assumption?
Face it - there's NO real reason to think Romney will be better than Obama on issues of fundamental liberty. None whatsoever.
A principled electorate would reject both of these men, and vote for someone who will actually uphold the Constitution.
I do not fear the creation of a Soviet- or Nazi-style state under Romney. I do fear the creation of a Venezuelan-style state under Obama, eventually one with a "president for life."
I don't. That sort of talk reminds me of the half-baked nonsense people were spewing back in 2000 that "Clinton might declare a state of emergency" or "Clinton will declare martial law to remain in office." Of course, as we all now, he didn't. And the reason for that is because our political system is still fundamentally stronger than any one man in office.
Give America some credit. We've had orderly, peaceful transitions of power for over 230 years now. Obama's not going to be able to break that up, even if he tried.
What I fear is that under Obama, America will continue its slide towards European-style techno-socialism; and under Romney, America will continue that slide as well, perhaps at only 90% of the speed, but continuing it nevertheless.
In my last, I mentioned Saul Alinsky. WRT Mitt Romney, it is clear that you have taken a page out of Alinsky's playbook, Rules for Radicals, in that you isolate — "freeze" — target — thus to destroy him. I call that character assassination, pure and simple.
So essentially, what you're saying is that disagreeing with your candidate and bringing up problematic issues about his past record is "an Alinsky tactic"?
Um, no.
And I don't care how long you've been on Free Republic, you aren't going to get a pass on that.
Face facts, BB - your chosen candidate is a progressive leftist. He's bad on just about any issue you can name. And while you people may be able to dig up occasion news about some isolated incident where Romney did something seemingly conservative, the simple fact is that when you look at his overall record, on just about anything, you see one that more befits somebody on the other side of the aisle.
Essentially what you all would have us do is act like Romney was a complete blank slate prior to mid-2007, when he started to prepare to run for President in the GOP primary, and hence had to start changing his "game face." Everything from before this point, so you would seem to be saying, should just be ignored, we should pretend it doesn't exist. All that bad stuff in his record - gets to be magically sealed and filed away where nobody can see it, like it was a juvenile arrest record or something.
You'll pardon me if I'm skeptical of this approach.
Yashcheritsiy, you start with the presupposition that Obama and Romney are effectively "moral equivalent." Then you collect and sift evidence WRT Romney, at least some of which is factually wrong (based on my experience with, e.g., firearms licensing in Massachusetts), or pre-spun for you by "sources" who may not be particularly objective — from which you draw the conclusion that there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two men, spiritually, intellectually, morally, ideologically.
Case in point: You present Romney as anti-RKBA. But the fact is, while he was Governor of Massachusetts, citizen firearms licensing expanded dramatically, particularly among women. And I guarantee you, Romney did NOT increase licensing fees 400%. I know this, because I pay such fees, and have been doing so since the Weld Administration.
I start with the presupposition that they are not morally (or ideologically) equivalent, because I believe that human character is formed by life experiences, and particularly those of one's childhood.
In short, you take a "bottom-up" approach in character assessment; while I prefer a "top-down" approach.
My main question for you here is: How can the characters of the two men be in any way "equivalent," when their childhood/family situations, life experiences, and educational histories could not be more different?
Obama was born to a rootless hippie (that would be Stanley Ann Dunham, child of atheist Marxist parents) with a romantic penchant for third-world men of color (e.g., Barack Obama, Sr., a black nationalist, anti-colonial Kenyan Marxist of Muslim faith) and Lolo Soetoro, an Indonesian Muslim of radical tendencies. Stanley certainly married the latter; I'm not sure she ever married the former. (Obama Sr. had four wives, permissible in Islam. It is still unclear to me that Obama Jr.'s mother was one of them.) It seems clear to me that Obama is not a "natural born citizen of the United States" owing to the British citizenship of his father. It is not certain that he was even born on U.S. soil; certain of his Kenyan relatives swear they were present at his birth in Kenya.
His mother dragged him to Indonesia when he was a young boy, where he was registered at school as being of Muslim faith. Then, when her marriage to Soetoro failed, she dragged him to Hawaii, and dumped him off with her parents, who raised him during his teenage years. Obama has little if any identification with America and American values. Indeed, in his youth he was attracted to radical Marxists (some would say communists) such as the black nationalist poet, Frank Marshall Davis. Information about Obama's college years has been effectively erased. But eventually he lands in Chicago where, as a student of Saul Alinsky, he became a "community organizer." My point is Obama is a rootless person, with no love or sympathy for America and the American way of life; he chose to adopt a "black" identity — and fell under the sway of the black nationalist preacher, Jeremiah Wright, whose anti-American diatribes Obama imbibed for some twenty years. He hung out with radical anarchists Bill Ayers (who probably is the unacknowledged ghost-writer of Obama's Dreams from My Father) and Bernardine Dohrn.
Romney was born into a loving, stable family. His father George, a successful self-made businessman, was chairman and president of American Motors Corporation and then, the 43rd Governor of Michigan — who according to people who knew him personally, saw political office, not as an opportunity for self-aggrandisement, but as an opportunity for public service. When George died, he left Mitt with a sizable inheritance — which Mitt then promptly donated to charity. He and Ann started out their married life quite "poor." But by dint of sheer smarts and hard work, he became a self-made man, like his father. In 1990, Romney joined Bain & Company, which was then facing financial collapse. He "saved" the firm, and became its CEO the following year. His business model at Bain was quite innovative at the time, but has since become "the model that everybody uses." Over the years, he has donated millions of dollars to a diversity of private charities.
I could add more details about Romney's personal history, all of which point to a man of open-handed generosity, sterling character, and personal integrity.
But since I'm trying to keep my comments brief, I'll just get to my point right here: How on earth do you justify your presupposition that these two men — Obama and Romney — are in any sense alike, characterwise? And on what basis do you suppose that they share the same ideology, or have the same political goals?
Just askin'.
Thank you very much for writing, Yashcheritsiy.