Well, the dems have come out, guns blazing, repeating over and over again how Mitt Romney is a liar. They say he has promised a $500 billion tax cut for the rich, and now he denies it. Or maybe it's $500 trillion -- it's over about a 10-year period, I believe. Why not $800 gazillion? Yeah, that's the ticket.
You know, I've been listening very closely and I don't recall Mitt Romney ever promising any kind of a tax cut that would affect the rich in particular. He's proposing a 20% cut in tax RATES across the board and closing loopholes in the tax code. Paul Ryan -- Romney's running mate, by the way -- has pointed out that most of the really lucrative tax loopholes were established by legislators and target particular wealthy organizations headquarteded in their districts. Like GE, which paid no federal taxes in 2010 (or was it 2011?)
Closing the loopholes will impact some specific taxpayers -- largely very wealthy ones, and perhaps some whole industries with very effective lobbyists.
Far as I know, Romney has NEVER proposed a tax cut for the wealthy. I even read his 59-point program, and don't recall a tax break for the rich. I think I would have remembered that. Additonally, the dems claim that a Princeton economist named Rosen "proved" with arithmetic that Romney's plan to cut taxes for the rich would blow a hole in the federal budget and compel a big tax hike on the middle class to make up for it. However, Rosen has come out and said he thinks Romney's tax plan would be "revenue neutral" -- this is, pay for itself -- and stimulate economic growth. The growth would cover the cut in tax rates. And he never considered it a tax cut for the rich alone.
The tax-cut-for-the-wealthy accusation was a myth, as Marco Rubio might say, that the dems made up to try to paint Romney as some kind of greed-driven, demonic reincarnation of Satan. It also makes the Comrade's neurotic obsession about taxing the rich look like some kind of real issue instead of just his personal marxist hobbyhorse.
Straw men
It's always a good idea to familiarize yourself with the "official" rules of logic. Certain fallacies exist, or errors in logic, meaning you aren't thinking clearly. Aristotle invented logic. The Comrade can't blame Republicans for that.
Logic defines what's called a "straw man argument" as one possible fallacy, or a device often used to confuse logic. So what is a straw man?
A straw man is a fabricated enemy or issue that doesn't exist in reality, but serves as a threat of some kind, or a point to argue against.
It's like if I said, "Those cheeseheads in Wisconsin are killing all the cattle in Illinois because they want the dairy market all to themselves." Not true, but gives my "followers" among the lunatic frings a rallying point to arm themselves and stand guard at the Wisconsin border.
It's like saying the rich are the ones who have wrecked the US economy and they must be taxed into povety, or regulated so heavily they can't make any money and will be forced out of Wall street, or possibly, they should all be rounded up and imprisoned in the Thompson Correctional Center.
It's a tactic of demagogues -- who, thoughout history, have been loud-mouthed rabble-rousers, usually very personable and likable, but generally holding destructive or power-mad intentions. They often whip up the population against vulnerable groups or "enemies on the border." Hitler did this to the Jews. Iran's Abracadabrajab does it to Israelis and Americans.
But the fact is, with straw man tactics, there is no issue. It's all a Big Lie. It's done just to scare people, whip them up, unify them into a crazed mob, get them running through the streets with torches, looking for the monster. You get the idea. Think Boris Karlof in Transylvania.
So the dems spent -- what was it? -- approximately $150 million in campaign funds producing ads that created an evil demon straw man that they named "Mitt Romney."
The only problem is, Romney is alive and well and very well capable of defeating this stupid argument simply by showing his rather well-intentioned, affable face on TV during a presidential debate, and making 67 million viewers scratch their heads and ask, "So where are his horns? Seems like a very decent, well-informed, and capable man to me."
Demagogues and psychopaths
The Comrade, on the other hand, is a very different story. He's almost a classic example of "demagogue." You can look that up. Those guys often are genuinely evil, and many clearly have been certifiable psychopaths. Not all, but many. Psychopaths have no empathy or compassiom for other human beings or anything else, for that matter. They feel no guilt, ever. They can kill and destroy without hesitation, and they often do if it brings them some advantage. Many serial killers also are psychopaths.
Curiously enough, like demagogues, many psychopaths are notably charming and attractive as individuals, though very often, others complain that it's impossible to share any real intimacy with them. Like Ted Bundy. And although psychopaths can have various goals, it seems as a general rule of thumb that what they want is control -- over their friends, families, victims. They usually want to run things.
In one rather gruesome but illustrative example, the Green River murderer, a serial killer, told the cops he disposed of the bodies of his victims in clusters of four or five because he could control them batter that way. These are corpses we're talking about. Perhaps a precursor to the current popular rage about zombies?
And this whole thing about Romney lying -- exactly what is Romney supposed to have lied about? The policies he's proposing? What? If he wanted to change them, he could simply change them. Why would he lie about it? He'd probably call a press conference and frame the shift as his way of offering an olive branch to democrats, proving he's willing to "work across the aisle."
So, I leave it up to the reader. Who's the liar here? Who, in fact, has a lifelong history of lies and deceptions, and is, to summarize, not much more than a big, gassy fraud? Sailing along by preying on white liberal guilt and black paranoia -- selling Harvard on his birth in Kenya -- oh yes, that's what Harvard thought. And that's documented. As presedent of the Harvard Review, he was described as "born in Kenya, raised in Indonesia." Probably to present himself as some sort of exotic and beg for a scholarship. That's probably why he hides his Harvard records.
By contrast, who has lived in somewhat of the political limelight all his life, his father being a governor? Who served as a bishop in his church, has a long record of extending aid and support to others -- and doesn't like to talk about it. Turned around a near-bankrupt Olympic games as well as the State of Massachusetts, and accomplished all this in his spare time while he was building a company and accumulating millions of dollars?
So who's more credible? You decide.
Save the Republic.
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