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Mitt Romney is a “vulture capitalist” who “raided companies” to “protect golden parachutes” and “destroy thousands of jobs of hard-working Americans.”
Those are the charges against the presumptive Republican nominee, and they’re being made not by Obama or Occupy Wall Street or anyone else on the Left — though they all heartily agree with the sentiments.
To be sure, this is the normal, everyday language of the Left.
But, no, these are the words of Romney’s “conservative” rivals in the GOP primary contest, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
They have been attacking Romney’s private-sector work at Bain Capital, an investment group which took failing companies and tried to turn them into successful, profitable, job-producing businesses. The firm helped to do just that with such enterprises as Staples and others. But, in some cases, Bain had to downsize companies in an effort to try to save, restructure and grow them, and that resulted in the loss of jobs.
Yet a Gingrich political PAC has been running the half-hour documentary King of Bain about Romney’s work with the firm, a film that is so factually-challenged that the Washington Post gave it not one, or two, or three, but four Pinocchios! The Post called it “a highly misleading portrayal of Romney’s years at Bain Capital.”
What Romney did at Bain, simply put, was engage in capitalism. As he has said, no one wants to see any business go bankrupt or any single person lose his or her job, but in a free market system there are going to be winners and losers. Some businesses will succeed while others will fail, and the people working in the businesses which fail, sadly, will lose their jobs.
America was built on this system, and became the most powerful and wealthiest nation on the planet because of it. We call it capitalism, but that was actually a word concocted by Karl Marx to demonize successful businesses and people who make money. It is, in fact, the free enterprise system, or what has been called economic freedom and the empowerment of every individual to enjoy, as our Declaration of Independence promises, not only life and liberty, but the pursuit of happiness as each one defines happiness for himself or herself.
For some, that translates into the pursuit of riches and material possessions above all else, and as long as that pursuit is carried out ethically it is something that should be encouraged and valued — if for no other reason than the more that person succeeds, the more it is going to benefit other people and society at large. Like it or not, America has always depended upon such people for our collective prosperity and it always will.
Mitt Romney is a “vulture capitalist” who “raided companies” to “protect golden parachutes” and “destroy thousands of jobs of hard-working Americans.”
Those are the charges against the presumptive Republican nominee, and they’re being made not by Obama or Occupy Wall Street or anyone else on the Left — though they all heartily agree with the sentiments.
To be sure, this is the normal, everyday language of the Left.
But, no, these are the words of Romney’s “conservative” rivals in the GOP primary contest, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.
They have been attacking Romney’s private-sector work at Bain Capital, an investment group which took failing companies and tried to turn them into successful, profitable, job-producing businesses. The firm helped to do just that with such enterprises as Staples and others. But, in some cases, Bain had to downsize companies in an effort to try to save, restructure and grow them, and that resulted in the loss of jobs.
Yet a Gingrich political PAC has been running the half-hour documentary King of Bain about Romney’s work with the firm, a film that is so factually-challenged that the Washington Post gave it not one, or two, or three, but four Pinocchios! The Post called it “a highly misleading portrayal of Romney’s years at Bain Capital.”
What Romney did at Bain, simply put, was engage in capitalism. As he has said, no one wants to see any business go bankrupt or any single person lose his or her job, but in a free market system there are going to be winners and losers. Some businesses will succeed while others will fail, and the people working in the businesses which fail, sadly, will lose their jobs.
America was built on this system, and became the most powerful and wealthiest nation on the planet because of it. We call it capitalism, but that was actually a word concocted by Karl Marx to demonize successful businesses and people who make money. It is, in fact, the free enterprise system, or what has been called economic freedom and the empowerment of every individual to enjoy, as our Declaration of Independence promises, not only life and liberty, but the pursuit of happiness as each one defines happiness for himself or herself.
For some, that translates into the pursuit of riches and material possessions above all else, and as long as that pursuit is carried out ethically it is something that should be encouraged and valued — if for no other reason than the more that person succeeds, the more it is going to benefit other people and society at large. Like it or not, America has always depended upon such people for our collective prosperity and it always will.
For those who want to disparage them as “evil” or disavow our free enterprise system and its manifold blessings, I would invite you to travel to a country where there are no rich people and take a look around you. I’ll tell you right now, you’ll be standing in one of the hellholes of the world, where no one would want to live. Or ask a poor person for a job and see how far you get.
When it comes to economics, conservatives understand that the free enterprise system (capitalism), though flawed, is the best one there is for promoting the greatest good to the most number of people, giving every single person the best possible opportunity to succeed through whatever endeavors, in whatever fields, and at whatever financial levels they may pursue. Conservatives see business and the private sector as the engine of economic growth, and rightly so.
Liberals like Pres. Obama embrace the Marxist philosophy of demonizing the rich, particularly the successful businessman or entrepreneur. They believe in government as the source of all good things, and it doesn’t matter how often or how spectacularly the Marxist or socialist philosophies fail (as they have everywhere they’ve been tried throughout all of human history), you cannot convince them otherwise. They are true believers — not in God, by any means, but in the power and righteousness of government. To them, it is a holy calling, notwithstanding the fact that all their lofty dreams always, when fully implemented, end up in rank tyranny and wholesale carnage.
This is why Obama and the Left look at Bain Capital with such pure disdain. They believe that failing businesses should be bailed out and propped up — which, oh, by the way, allows government to get its greedy, power-hungry tentacles into these businesses and gain control of them, and ultimately of more and more of the private sector, more and more of our private lives. Next thing you know, they’re ramming through government-controlled health care and taking over the one-sixth of the economy it represents (not to mention the most personal decisions of the personal lives of individual citizens); they’re bailing out banks and car companies and Wall Street firms as those tentacles spread ever further; and, all along, they’re driving up our debt to unsustainable levels, knowing that the Big Crash will result in government supremacy.
You know, everything that was done in the former Soviet Union and every other socialist state in the history of the world, and turned them all into economic basket cases. As is happening now in Europe and on its way to happening, in America, under Obama — who wants to “fundamentally transform America” into one big European socialist state, despite the disaster that Europe has turned into thanks to these destructive policies.
As Romney put it: “Europe doesn’t work in Europe, so it’s certainly not going to work here.”
Just don’t try to tell Obama that.
Or, apparently, Newt or Gov. Perry either.
e-mail: tom3264@msn.com, or go to tom’s Facebook page to send a message
