Feature: D.C. Water Cooler

Romney or Obama: A Simple Choice of Critical Importance

Author: Jimmy Zuma
Published: September 07, 2012 at 8:07 am
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The worst time to be a politics junkie is the last 90 days of any race. Scurrilous lies gather like yellow jackets at the dump. Things just get worse until Election Day. This conventional wisdom applies: Never rely on one candidate to inform you about the other.

The only high points in the home stretch are the conventions and the debates. This is when each candidate presents his own vision. The differences have never been clearer.

Mitt Romney argues for Pure Capitalism, the economic theory, almost as if it were a system of government – or perhaps a religion. In his view, the self-worship that captains of industry heap upon themselves is well-deserved tribute not to be questioned.

Mr. Romney appears to argue for a society organized around pure capitalist principles – free markets, unregulated commerce, and caveat emptor. Simply put, to each according to his ability to take. In Mitt Romney’s America, the best worker is a hungry worker, or better yet a desperate one.

This kind of primitive, jungle equality is easy to mistake for fairness when you started life up in the tree canopy. But down on the jungle floor it still looks like chimpanzees biting each other’s fingers off.

Romney’s exception, of course is defense. Here government should meddle incessantly. Defense procurement is our government’s greatest fire hose of corporate welfare and Mitt believes no amount of spending on it is too much. But Free-market Capitalism didn’t win World War II. In fact, there was no period in our history when commerce, (whether it was selling, buying, wages or rationing) was more regulated.

Romney’s vision is for government to get out of the way of people who “built it,” deserve it and ought not to pay for it. As others have noted he (along with his wife) believes that success is measured in dollars, not a surprising metric for any pure capitalist but kind of a weird way of looking at life for any regular human.

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Article Author: Jimmy Zuma

What is your political office talking about around the DC Water Cooler? Email Jimmy at jimmyzuma@smartvstupid.com or call 202.681.4091. America's Favorite Liberalâ„¢, Jimmy Zuma, writes Technorati's DC Water Cooler, a weekly feature of what the politicians and pundits are talking about. …

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