Skip to main content

Don't Be So Hard on Romney



Now would be an easy time to jump on Romney, to talk about his lack of compassion or ability to relate with average Americans-- as if it were something we had just become aware of.  The truth is it is very hard for any of us to be compassionate of those we have no experience with and whose stories we have never had to relate to.  
 
I genuinely think that Romney can’t be empathetic or compassionate to poor people the way that I can’t be compassionate to people who abuse the elderly. I have no experience with the need to beat, humiliate, or yell at grandmothers and therefore can’t really show those who do have that need any compassion or worry about their well-being. I’m not comparing the 47% of Americans Romney was referring to as elder abusers, but I think to Romney they could fall into the same category: people he has no experience with or understanding of and therefore has no compassion for.


Romney has never lacked a social safety net because his family and Mormon (not Christian) community have always been there to catch him. He has no experience with financial and social insecurity. He’s not evil; he is just naively fortunate. I don’t spite him for that. I just don’t believe it leaves him well-equipped to govern a nation which is overwhelming compromised of hard-working people who have not had the same good fortune. That 47% may have had opportunities provided by the government– public education, a social safety net, etc. And perhaps many of us have felt that we are entitled to those things. But no more so that Romney has assumed that he is entitled to the advantages that he has been given.

The point is: Romney has no experience with leading a family, a company, or a state through a financial crisis without being able to walk away with his financial security intact at the end of the day. His entitlements have never been threatened.  Why should he be able to successfully see us through this fiscal crisis, which has no safety nets? In this time of deep cultural, social, income, belief-based, and political division, in a world where people will kill those who represent us in the streets because they find us so abhorrent– how could he possibly be expected to show character and will in the face of such challenges when he has always had the ability to opt out of such difficult situations?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Medusa Myth

Since I decided to go as Medusa this year for Halloween, I thought I should brush up on my Greek myths and not just rely on my memories of the 1981, stop-motion-tastic film  Clash of the Titans .  In Ovid's rendition, this symbol of female power was once a beautiful, virginal priestess,  "the jealous aspiration of many suitors,"  in the temple of Athena.  When Poseidon decides he will have her, he "ravishes" (i.e. rapes) her as she prays in temple in front of the altar of Athena.  The goddess Athena punishes Medusa's transgression by causing snakes to grow out of her head, tearing their way through her scalp to take the place of her much admired hair.  Athena gives Medusa boar's tusks and turns her skin to scales.  (The myth doesn't mention how Athena takes vengeance on Poseidon.)  After this torturous transformation Medusa is banished to the island of Cristhene, off the coast of Ethiopia in the Red Sea.  In exile she is pursued as she ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Debate as Disinfectant

  I'm reviving this blog after ALMOST A DECADE (wtf!?!) to give myself a platform for political expression outside the increasingly tribalized echo chamber of social media.   The political landscape has shifted in ways I couldn't have imagined nine years ago.  In 2016 when Hillary Clinton uttered the phrase "implicit bias" during the first presidential debate it prompted a flurry of Google searches.  Now, this term is part of our daily lexicon whether we believe in it or not. Disinformation campaigns from authoritarian leaders in Russia and China undermine our trust in institutions and shape our narratives in ways we refuse to examine or admit. Every social media post is assumed to telegraph one's allegiance to a cause. As everything from the mail to health hygiene being claimed by one political identity or another, tribalism has become our new national past-time.  On the other hand,  I've watched friends who initially shied away from spea...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Rationalization

This is a blog about applied opinion. Over the past few months I have been keeping a mental log of all the times I hear people (or myself) apply personal beliefs to the decisions of others. From talking heads on FOX "news” and MSNBC to atheist arguments to women giving unsolicited advice to new mothers: it all got me thinking. Who owns my body? Whose thoughts do I let take up residency in my brain? Whose comments bruise, bounce, cut, coerce, persuade, and inform my own thoughts and opinions? My own behavior? How do I apply my espoused personal politics to my decisions and actions? How and why do I subject other people to them? This is a journal of frustration. It’s an experiment in the evolution of thought and interconnectedness. Even as I write this first posting I am considering the politics of writing in the age of texting, blogging, G-chat, and spell-check. Who will take note of sentence structure and grammar, of misplaced words? Who will leave commentary for correc...
1 comment
Read more