House of Eratosthenes

Now I’ll admit that these are not the most ideal words to come out of a candidates mouth, but not being ideal does not make the words untrue. Romney is saying what I’ve been saying for years. Romney hit the nail smack dab on the head. So do I. The difference is, he’s running for office and I’m not.
:
Romney is right. We’re now at the point where over 47 percent of the people in this county — over 47 [percent] of people who are old enough to be in the U.S. workforce — pay no income taxes at all. Actually, it’s worse than that. Not only do they not pay taxes, they consume a good portion of the taxes paid by the other 52+ percent. These people are on the government teat .. and for all-too-many of them, that’s exactly where they want to stay.

What do you say about this “concerned friend” of yours who “is independent, neither Republican nor democrat” who is so disinterested in politics that he can’t wait to amble on over, with a big smile on his dumb face, to share with you how Romney “blew it”? How do you reply?

One good stock answer I’ve heard is: “Telling the truth is a scandal now? How far we’ve fallen!” That’s a pretty good one.

I like “You’re one of the multitudes who thinks there’s a scandal here? And here was me thinking you had a conscience.”

Or…”What, we shouldn’t be paying any attention to this stuff? For how long?” And “Did he get the number wrong?”

Every now and then I hear someone comment that hundreds of years from now, perhaps thousands, when experts in archeology and sociology try to figure out where the Great American Experiment failed, they will locate the precise jump-the-shark moment at…and I don’t like hearing this at all. I don’t like thinking the experiment will ever fail, and I certainly don’t like hearing that it is now on some final terminal decline.

But if we are indeed on one, I think they will locate the precise initiation of the final decline here: When “I’m going to prove those things they’re saying about me, are not true” became equal to “I’m going to prove that when they say those things about me, they’re not going to get away with it.” In any society that deserves to survive and thrive, those two are not the same things. Somewhere in the relatively recent past in America, they have become fused together.

I’m hearing from a lot of people who are part of Romney’s 47%, or apologists for others who are in the 47%, talking up the narrative that Gov. Romney will now never-ever-ever be President, ever — won’t get away with it. And, as to whether his remarks had any truth to them or not, they are resolutely silent.

What is that like, I wonder? To quicken the pumping of one’s own blood with the understanding that some loathed critic will-not-get-away-with-saying-it…and, simultaneously, to understand inwardly, being ready to admit it or not, that this bit of criticism is absolutely, positively, completely true? What’s that like?

Here is what you say to them and you keep hammering it in until they get it. “Did you know that unemployed people pay taxes? Yes that’s right. They pay 10% Federal taxes on their unemployment benefits. Now, if the unemployed can pay their fair share, please tell me who can’t.”

I had really good friends with three kids on welfare. Ted was a good guy, ex-Nam vet that got bounced out on a heroin addiction, which he used after being shot up in the field. He just didn’t see a lot of point to working if he didn’t have to. His wife referred to the welfare check as her “paycheck”. She figured that she deserved compensation for having kids. They managed that way until the Clinton welfare reforms. Ted saw the handwriting on the wall and went looking for a job. He found one and I lost track of him after that. Poor people are not stupid. If you are willing to pay them to do nothing, then that is what they will do. There is no one that is going to take a minimum wage job and go through all the hassles of work, if they can get more money from the Government. The only fix for this is to reform the tax code so that everyone in this country has to pay taxes on what they get, even if it’s a pittance.
- teripittman | 09/18/2012 @ 12:23
Oh, and if there’s any doubt of what these folks are like, turn on Hard Core Pawn some night. I know it’s Detroit and not a surprise, but folks really do have a sense of entitlement.
- teripittman | 09/18/2012 @ 12:25
You want to know why Judge Judy has one of the most popular syndicated TV programs for ten years and counting? It’s because she says stuff exactly like Romney just did, to the faces of those 47%. It doesn’t seem to be hurting her all that much, and I think Romney will fare similarly.
- nightfly | 09/19/2012 @ 06:26
Precisely. And when she does, those 47% keep talking and have to be shushed up repeatedly, to the point where they’ll almost get thrown in the hoosegow for contempt, and then they’ll throw out a bunch of pablum of “I take complete responsibility” when they really don’t, and when all else fails just stand there and generally act all abused like “life” has just dealt them yet another bad hand…all the little tricks they’ve learned through the years “always” work and “always” get them what they want. Which, when the dust has all settled, may or may not work that time too…but when they’re given these little clues that they’re in a different situation and it might not work, they plug on ahead anyway, not because they’re particularly determined but because they don’t know any other way.

Exactly the way the Obamastration, and the Obamapologists, and the Obamamedia have been dealing with Mitt Romney’s comments. “Omigaw how offensive!!” They run their “online” polls, and polls come back looking like this one…all they can do is say “Omigaw” again and again.

Because the truth is, if they believed in adapting to new situation by way of new methods, they wouldn’t be in the 47%.
- mkfreeberg | 09/19/2012 @ 06:42
[…] Lastly, House of Eratosthenes (whom, if you are not reading regularly, you should be) savages an old friend from Atlanta. […]
- All Fall Down | TechnoChitlins | 09/20/2012 @ 06:35
What do you say?

Look ’em in the eye and say
“The Pigs are lying, you really CAN keep the windfalls.”
???
“The Pigs…”
???
“…on The Farm…?”
???
Oh, you had Union teachers, didn’t you?”
- CaptDMO | 09/20/2012 @ 17:28

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Boortz Wants to Know What the Problem Is
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