The Republican party is demented.

[kpete]

The Problem with Romney Is the Problem with Empathy
By Charles P. Pierce
at 8:51AM

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The Republican party is demented.

Having examined, at some length, the process by which Romney distanced himself from his one great achievement in elected office — and, by extension, from all the good he'd done for thousands of people and their health insurance — I seem to have gotten backwards the political liabilities this held for Romney in facing a national Republican electorate gone, in the immortal phrase of the late George V. Higgins, as soft as church music. I thought his fashioning of a health-care reform program in Massachusetts, and its popular success, would be a problem on theoretical grounds. I was wrong. It turns out the problem Republicans have with the program is not the ideological big-government aspect of it. The problem they have with it is the good it turned out to do for people. The problem with it is that it made people's lives a little easier. The problem is that cruelty has become an ideology in itself, and it is an implacable one.

"The thing Romney needs to do to beat Obama is show up in this debate and not have another empathy comment. Those comments are really hurting him far more than any 47% comments," said Ryan Rhodes, a tea party activist from Iowa. "The government's not here for empathy, it's here for the law. If we use empathy for everything we want to do, that's how countries go bankrupt and bad policy is created."

The problem with the Romney campaign is not the alleged ideological incoherence of his political resume. The problem is that he's trying to appeal to a party full of moral monsters.


Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/mitt-romney-health-care-reaction-13166210#ixzz27m2KrpBQ

[porphyrian]

1. Self-righteous hypocrisy is so much more obnoxious than hypocrisy itself. n/t

[JHB]

2. The "Big Government" they rail against has always been the things that work for ordinary people...

...and the "limited government" they sloganeer on has always meant "freedom for the most ruthless".

They've been very successful at putting lipstick on their pig and snowing some people that it wasn't their intention (remember "compassionate conservative"?), but when you look at the people driving their movement that's exactly what they wanted.

[kentuck]

5. They are focused like a laser on cutting government...

without regard to consequences or pain to others.

[Cary]

3. I don't like to say this but all roads do seem to lead to racism.

What keeps "conservatives" going? What makes them tick? They all hate this amorphous thing they call "Liberal" but what does that mean? They can easily let go of their ideology when their party offers it up as some kind of perk for their donors, like Medicare Part D. Did they say boo at that biggest of big government moves?

So what exactly is their ideology? It's a pretext. That's all. They are Calvinist. They believe in some strange divine right of the top 1%.

Well, that's the best I can make of it.

[salinen]

4. good analysis

all I can add is the personality disorder that causes conservatives to accept only information that matches their worldview. Very similar to the pre-pubescent mentality and very destructive in adults.

[JHB]

7. I've used precisely that terminology:

The Divine Right of Markets, The Divine Right to Maximized Profit.

Somehow "checks and balances" when applied to economics amounts to "socialism".

[hifiguy]

6. Mussolini would be so proud of the baggers.

He'd just plotz.

[JHB]

8. I compare them to the Soviets (hey, throw their own accusations back in their face)...

They'd be a Pravda editor's dream audience. Just wind them up with the current Party Line, and off they go!