Cyberherbalist's Blog

This coming Tuesday is The Day!  There’s no doubt that some of us are going to be very surprised and disappointed.  I am pretty sure I will be neither.  This is because I am just about as convinced as I can be that Mitt Romney will be President-Elect before midnight at the end of the day.  And since my dear wife and I have already dropped our ballots off, it’s a “done deal” for us.

But as confident as I am, there is nevertheless a degree of doubt in there.  I do not have perfect prophetic vision, so this must be the case.  But I am surprised that there are some Obama supporters who believe that they do possess this vision.  Amazing.

Take this little gem by Robert Crawford, who tweets as @JurassicPork59, for instance:

Romney’s now desperately calling his campaign a “movement.” As in “movement, bowel.”

This word, “desparately”, suggests that the tweeter thinks that Romney is in some distress over his prospects for election.  I wonder where he gets this?  I’ve listened to a few of Romney’s speeches over the past few days, and he sounds not at all “desparate”.  If anything, he sounds genuinely confident, positive, and upbeat.

I wonder if the tweeter has not heard that over the past week Romney’s numbers have improved all over the place, and that states which were formerly counted as Obama states have now gone over into the “swing” category?  And this being the case, why would Romney be “desparate”?  I think Mr. Crawford is projecting, actually.  You know, “projecting”, as in projecting his own emotional state onto another person, Mitt Romney in this case.

Although Mr. Crawford might have a point, after all.  My own tweet in response to the one above went like this:

@jurassicpork59 tweeted that Romney’s campaign is a “bowell movement”. How appropriate! On Tuesday the nation voids itself of Obama.

This segment is the Role of Government.

Starting with President Obama.

He says that the first responsibility is to defend the country.  But the federal government has a role in supporting the infrastructure.  He used the transcontinental railrod and the National Academy of Science as put forth by President Lincoln as examples.  He went on to claim that Romney doesn’t think we need more teachers, but Romney immediately put the cabosh on that.

Romney agreed with defense as being the first thing, and went on to discourse on the rest of the three Declaration of Independence principles: Life; Liberty; Pursuit of Happiness. 

The moderator asked him about education.  Romney is in favor of school choice, and let the parent and the child decide where their allocated aid should go.  Obama responds that Romney’s tax cuts will hurt the education budget.  They both manage to agree that it would be good to help businesses partner with community colleges.

Obama brings up one of the Obama’s favorite mantras, that is that Romney expects students to borrow money from their parents for their education.  Romney didn’t directly respond to this.  Or indirectly, I guess.  If he did, I missed it.

This has been a very good debate.  I guess I am very impressed with both of them, at least as to their debating skills.

And the moderator got blindsided several times with both Romney and Obama talking over him and not letting him keep control.  It was hilarious!

But a good job of moderating, though.

An excellent job all around.  Who won the debate?  I believe that Romney did.  But Obama seemed to hold his own, to a degree, despite what I recognized as a disdain for the facts.

They’re digging into Social Security and Medicare now, and both gents don’t want to touch Social Security with a ten foot pole.

Medicare gets some talk, though.

They are not in such huge disagreement in this topic as in the economy.  They are both treading very softly on this whole subject. 

Changing subject to regulations, particularly of banks.  Romney wants a complete overhaul of what Obama has done, and Obama isn’t so keen on it.  Particularly the Dodd-Frank law regarding the regulation of banks, where Romney says that designating five big banks as “too big to fail” with the federal government standing there with a bail and letting smaller banks go to hell in a handbasket was a huge mistake.  Obama had no answer for this.

When it comes to Obamacare, Romney had four major points to hold against it, and one important one was that instead of saving $2,000 on healthcare per year, it is costing people $2,000 more.  Lots of unintended consequences.  Obama doesn’t directly address this, though he repeated his old “if you like your health plan you can keep it”.  Which is incorrect because if your employer doesn’t want to keep his health plan because he thinks you can just get Obamacare coverage, he can just cut it off. 

Maybe I am biased (well, I am), but I have to say that Romney makes much more sense in this than Obama. 

But whatever the two candidates are feeling inside, they are keeping a very positive collegial face in the midst of a what must be a bit of an ordeal for both of them (although Romney seems more eager or at ease).  In short, both of them are looking very Presidential.  And that’s good.

Although I am on Twitter, I only occasionally check out the feeds of those whom I follow.  I don’t follow very many, and Tweet only very rarely, mainly just when I post an entry here.  And whom do I follow?  Well, I won’t bore you with my complete follower list (you can find out if you want by checking my Twitter profile: @IWasAboutToSay).  But I do follow President Obama, and last week when I happened to check my Twitter feed, the Chief Tweeter had just belted out a few Tweets.  I thought they were quite instructive and worth commenting on here.

Here are the Tweets he emitted on 27 September, along with my comments to each of them.

27 Sept 2012 10:10am – POTUS: “We can decide that in the United States of America, no child should have her dream deferred because of an overcrowded classroom.”

Studies have shown that classroom size has no actual effect on student performance.  And whatever does he think that the Federal government can do about it?  We’ve had a Federal Department of Education since Jimmy Carter, and this has had no discernible effect on student performance, no matter what policies it pursued, nor which party was in power.

I am not sure if the Obama administration cares a fig or not for actual results, or if classroom size in itself is the ultimate goal, but as for me, I want our children to actually be able to read, comprehend what they read, and become thinking adults.  Not Obamabots.

27 Sept 2012 10:12am – “Help us keep tuition costs down for young people all across this country. They deserve opportunity just like I had opportunity.”

And just what are “we” supposed to do to accomplish this?  There isn’t a college in the United States that is run by the Federal government.  Unless Obama wants to abolish the States and run the whole shootin’ match from the Oval Office.  I’m sure he’d love to.

27 September 2012 10:20am – President Obama: “The typical family has seen their tax burden go down about $3,600 on the federal level because of our policies.”

And which policies are those, exactly?  Has he lowered federal taxes or something?  Oh, I guess he lowered the FICA tax, thus making the Social Security system’s looming bankruptcy even closer than it was before!  Not sure if that’s a good thing or not.  I’d judge that it isn’t.  Well, apart from that, this is a marvelous demonstration of how to lie using statistics.  The reason families are paying less in federal taxes isn’t because of any conscious policy the Obama administration has put into effect, it is because families are making less money because the economy is in the process of flatlining.

But on second thought, I guess Obama has a point after all, in a kind of backhanded way: the Obama administration’s policies have utterly failed to do anything to stem the tide of economic collapse, and thus the typical family is paying less in taxes as a result of earning less income than before.  If I were him, though, I wouldn’t want to take much credit for this.  It doesn’t seem … helpful.  To him, anyway.

27 September 2012 10:25am – “My opponent thinks it’s fair that someone who makes $20 million a year like him pays a lower rate than a cop or a teacher who makes $50K.”

It’s amazing how nefarious that sounds!  Notice he doesn’t say that the cop or teacher pays more taxes, just that they have a higher tax rate?  And notice the amount: $20 million.  Is it a coincidence that his opponent Mitt Romney is known to make about $20 million a year on his investments?  No, I don’t think so!

Actually, I don’t know if Romney has been known to say that paying 15% on investment income is “fair” versus the rate at which a cop or teacher’s pays the tax on their income, which will vary some depending upon deductions.  But let’s just say that Romney pays 15% on the whole $20 million, and the cop or teacher pays, say, 20% on the whole $50K.  My calculator, then, says they pay this much in taxes:

• Romney pays: $3,000,000 • Cop/Teacher pays: $10,000

Now, just who is it that is paying the operating expenses of the country?  Romney’s taxes buys a heck of lot more crap than the cops or the teachers.  And in fact, after deductions, the cop or the teacher pays more like $3,000 in income taxes.  Which is an effective rate of 6%.  So, who is paying through the nose then?

And what is this fairness that Obama is talking about?  Does socking Romney with a higher tax rate make any practical difference to the cop?  Presumably the cop or teacher’s salary is being paid out of city or state taxes of one sort or another.  Does it make them feel better somehow to know that Romney is forking out a higher rate to the federal government?

The fact of the matter is simply this: Romney’s 15% is paying the equivalent of 60 teachers’ salaries.  The teacher’s taxes are paying for the toilet seat on a military transport airplane.  What was this about fairness, again?

27 September 2012 10:35am – “We’ve got a new tower across the New York skyline, al Qaeda is on the path to defeat, and bin Laden is dead.”—President Obama

And this is relevant?  How?  Oh, that’s right: Obama wants to make sure we know that he actually had the cojones to give the Go order to whack Osama bin Laden.  Props to him for that.  But wouldn’t ANY president have given that order, considering 9/11?  And as for that tower across the New York skyline, of course it was late and over budget, and the federal government didn’t build it.  So is he trying to take credit for that?  Too?

27 September 2012 10:46am – President Obama on the GOP: “Their theory is if you can’t afford health insurance, hope you don’t get sick.”

And where is this theory to be found, exactly?  In the collected works of Mitt Romney?  I know what the Democrat theory is.  Make health insurance so expensive that the only way anyone can afford it is for the federal government to provide it.  This is possibly the reason why the Affordable Care Act lays a tax on everyone who can’t afford to buy health insurance, or refuses to do so.  Capital idea!

The deeper implication of this otherwise blatant attempt to knock over yet another Straw Man is the message that under the Obama philosophy the ultimate insurer is the federal government.  If you can’t afford it, well then, Obama will pay for it!  And why should anyone buy their own insurance if the feds will fess it up?  The Obama Plan is thus a sly and sneaky way to ultimately nationalize the entire healthcare industry.  It has to be a step-wise process, of course, because few people would swallow it all at once.

27 September 2012 10:50am – President Obama on the Romney-Ryan mindset: “If you can’t afford to go to college, borrow money from your parents.”

And this is different from borrowing money from the federal government?  In what way, exactly?  Oh, that’s right, your parents might not have any money to lend.  The feds, on the other hand, don’t either, but they’d be willing to print some or borrow some into existence!  Either way, your parents will pay, either directly through taxes, or indirectly through inflation and an out-of-control national debt.  And so will you.  And while your parents might be willing to forgive your debt to them, will the federal government be willing?  One guess on that, my friend.

And please don’t try to paper this over by saying that the federal government is only guaranteeing student loans.  Who pays if the student defaults?  Why, the feds do!  That’s the only reason the lenders are willing to risk making the loans in the first place.

27 September 2012 11:01am – “We believe America only works when we accept certain responsibilities for ourselves, and also for others.”—President Obama

And just who would disagree with this platitude?  Nobody.  So what is the point?  Oh, that’s right, Obama wants to sound wise.  As for me, on the other hand, I’d prefer he fixed the economy.

27 September 2012 11:10am – “If we rally around a new kind of economic patriotism, we will rebuild this economy together. We will rebuild the middle class together.”

Please, Mr. President, what is this “new kind of economic patriotism”?

The key word here is the indefinite article “a”.  As in: “a new kind of economic patriotism”. It’s indefinite because he doesn’t have a clue what kind of economic patriotism he is talking about, but it sounds really good, so he says it.  And what exactly is the old kind of economic patriotism?  Come to think of it, I am rather cloudy on what the term “economic patriotism” is supposed to mean.

Here’s some “economic patriotism” for you: accept the responsibility for your own upkeep, to the greatest degree you are able, and expect all others to accept the responsibility for their own upkeep as well.  Once the federal government can accept that kind of economic patriotism, then prosperity will flow as naturally from the economy as water flows from a artesian spring.  As for those who genuinely cannot generate enough economic activity to sustain their own upkeep?  The generosity of all those who can do so will more than sustain those who cannot.