The Objective Eye

"Every movement that seeks to enslave a country, every dictatorship or potential dictatorship, needs some minority group as a scapegoat which it can blame for the nation's troubles and use as a justification of its own demand for dictatorial powers. In Soviet Russia, the scapegoat was the bourgeoisie; in Nazi Germany, it was the Jewish people; in America, it is the businessmen."
- Ayn Rand, "America's Persecuted Minority: Big Business" (1961)

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Location: Los Angeles, United States

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Romney Tips His RINO Hand

In the December 12 Iowa debate Romney made the following statement, which he clearly believes is acceptable and perfectly ethical:

"I don't stay awake at night worrying about the taxes that rich people are paying, I'm concerned about the taxes middle-class people are paying."

Think about that for a minute.

In other words:

"Americans, under my Presidency, would forfeit their natural rights - e.g. property and economic liberty - upon crossing some arbitrary threshold of 'acceptable' income. It's fine to strive for success, but if you actually achieve success, well then to hell with you."

In yet other words:

"Screw ethics, this is all about populism, votes and getting elected, and the 'middle class' is a way, way bigger group of voters than 'the rich.'"

And this is the GOP candidate who dares pose as a moralist?

- I wonder if anyone will ever sit down with Romney and explain to him the relationship between taxation and force, then the relationship between force and ethics.

- I wonder if he'd comprehend a word of it if anyone did.

- To keep it simpler for him, I wonder (ha!) if he could come up with an answer to the question of what criteria he would use to define someone as "rich," and how he would validate that definition.

- I wonder, on a purely pragmatic note, if Comrade Romney has ever contemplated the fact that economic income groups are not static in their composition.

Romney's sneering disdain for the property of "the rich" is pure poison in its perpetuation of an amoral collectivistic premise. It's a simplified manifestation of what economist George Reisman calls Platonic Competition. What that ethical blackout means in practice is something that was amply demonstrated under Bill Clinton: Taxation-at-will is simply a matter of expanding the definition of "the rich."

Bottom line:

Romney is no defender of individual rights, no defender of economic liberty, therefore no friend of core Americanism.

To repeat to Romney what I wrote to talk radio's Resident Lightweight, Laura Ingraham, after she made a similar statement the first - and last - time I listened to her show:

"With 'Republicans' like you, who needs socialists?"

Romney and leopards and spots, oh my!

Arrgh.
 

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