"Joy and pleasure are as real as pain and sorrow and one must learn what they have to teach. . . ." -- Sean Russell, from Gatherer of Clouds

"If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." -- Helyn D. Goldenberg

"I love you and I'm not afraid." -- Evanescence, "My Last Breath"

“If I hear ‘not allowed’ much oftener,” said Sam, “I’m going to get angry.” -- J.R.R. Tolkien, from Lord of the Rings

Saturday, October 06, 2012

47%? What 47%?


Mitt Romney is backing off the 47% remark. In fact, he's in full damage-control mode:




Unfortunately, according to his running mate, Paul Ryan, the actual figure is 60%. (Apparently, Ryan didn't get the e-mail.) That's how many of us get back more from the government than we pay in, according to Ryan. We're all takers.




From Mother Jones:
"Right now about 60 percent of the American people get more benefits in dollar value from the federal government than they pay back in taxes," he said on the June 2010 edition of Washington Watch. "So we're going to a majority of takers versus makers."

Listen carefully, and you'll discover that most of us are not really Americans.

And I do wonder who fed him the numbers, since it's obvious from his comments on his budget proposal that he can't do math.

"Makers" and "takers"? I mean, really. This bullpucky is straight out of Ayn Rand, and to be honest with you, I find it very revealing about Ryan's level of maturity: most of us outgrew Rand by the time we'd left college. Think about it. The prototypical Randian hero is a kind of warped vision of a superhero out of a comic book: gifted with phenomenal powers (greed, insensitivity, greed, lack of empathy and compassion, greed, ruthlessness, greed, self-absorption -- and did I mention greed?), he stands head and shoulders above all others. A perfect image for the teenage male who is finally out on his own (more or less), and whose interpersonal skills are still pretty rudimentary.

And do note the emptiness in his eyes.


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