Burnout

The combined effects of this travesty of an election campaign -- and the even worse travesty of the press coverage -- and the disaster on the East Coast. They come together in this post by Tom Levenson at Balloon Juice, pulling together Romney's attitude toward government -- which is basically give it back to the states, and if they can't handle it, privatize it.

The sheer boneheadedness of that attitude should leave me speechless, but it's just making me tired. I've seen too much of it. Here's the nut, quoting Romney:

ROMNEY: Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that’s the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that’s even better.

Instead of thinking in the federal budget, what we should cut—we should ask ourselves the opposite question. What should we keep? We should take all of what we’re doing at the federal level and say, what are the things we’re doing that we don’t have to do? And those things we’ve got to stop doing, because we’re borrowing $1.6 trillion more this year than we’re taking in. We cannot…

KING: Including disaster relief, though?

ROMNEY: We cannot—we cannot afford to do those things without jeopardizing the future for our kids. It is simply immoral, in my view, for us to continue to rack up larger and larger debts and pass them on to our kids, knowing full well that we’ll all be dead and gone before it’s paid off. It makes no sense at all.

[Emphasis added.]

Y'know, if the federal government, which is the largest orgranization we have, can't handle it, why does anyone think the states -- which don't have enough money to do what they need to do anyway -- are the best answer? And privatize things like disaster relief? Is anyone really that stupid? (I mean, anyone outside the Heritage Foundation.)

And what the hell am I supposed to think of anyone who thinks spending money to help those hit by natural disasters is "immoral"?

OK -- Romney and Ryan, based on their public statements and what they've managed to come up with for policy proposals (oh, and don't worry about details -- just electing Romney will fix all our problems right away because of the confidence fairy), lack most of those characteristics that most of us recognize as human. I mean, compassion? Empathy? Common sense?

Don't waste your time looking for them. They're not there.