Not to Defend Mittens…

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But Pat has some solid points:

Mitt Wasn’t All Wrong About “Gifts”—And Hispanic Voters In Particular Are Big Government Fans
By Patrick J. Buchanan

“What the president’s campaign did was focus on certain members of his base coalition, give them extraordinary financial gifts from the government and then work very aggressively to turn them out to vote, and that strategy worked.”

Thus did political analyst Mitt Romney identify the cause of his defeat in a call to disconsolate contributors.

Republicans piled on. “Completely unhelpful,” Gov. Bobby Jindal told Wolf Blitzer. We don’t advance the “debate by insulting folks.”

“A terrible thing to say,” Chris Christie told Joe Scarborough. “You can’t expect to be the leader of all the people and be divisive.”

Oh. Was not Abe Lincoln at least mildly “divisive”? Did not FDR insult Wall Street folks by calling them “money changers…in the temple of our civilization”? Was Ronald Reagan a uniter not a divider when he said, “Let the bloodbath begin!” and mocked “welfare queens”?

And Harry Truman, did he not insult and divide—and win?

“I just think it’s nuts,” Newt Gingrich told ABC’s Martha Raddatz of Romney’s remark, kicking him again in an Austin TV interview:

“Gov. Romney’s analysis … is insulting and profoundly wrong. … We didn’t lose Asian-Americans because they got any gifts. He did worse with Asian-Americans than he did with Latinos. This is the hardest-working and most successful ethnic group in America, OK, they ain’t into gifts.”

Now, Newt does have a point.

What explains the GOP wipeout among Asian-Americans? Folks of Korean, Chinese and Japanese descent have a legendary work ethic, are academic overachievers, and are possessed of an entrepreneurial spirit. They should be natural Republicans.

But Mitt also has a point.

Consider America’s largest, fastest-growing minority.

Hispanics constituted 10 percent of the electorate, up from 7.5 in 2008. But Mitt got only 27 percent of that, the lowest of any Republican presidential candidate.

This, we are told, was because of Mitt’s comment about “self-deportation” and GOP support for a border fence and sanctions on employers who hire illegals. If only we embrace the Dream Act and provide a path to citizenship—amnesty—the GOP’s problem is solved.

The Republican capacity for self-delusion is truly awesome.

Set aside the idealized Hispanic of the Republican consultants’ vision. What does the real Hispanic community look like today?

Let us consider only native-born Hispanics, U.S. citizens.

According to Steve Camarota of the Center for Immigration Studies, which analyzed Census Bureau statistics from 2012:

More than one in five Hispanic citizens lives in poverty.
One in four Hispanic-American men 25 to 55 is out of work.
More than half of all Hispanic women 25-55 are unmarried.
Half of all Hispanic households with children are headed by an unmarried woman, and 55 percent depend on welfare programs.

These numbers do not improve with time, as they did with the Irish, Italian, Polish, Jewish and German immigrants who poured into the United States between 1890 and 1920. Third-generation Hispanics do worse than second-generation Hispanics in all the above categories.

This is a huge community being sucked into the morass of a mammoth welfare state. Consider a typical Hispanic household with children.

It is headed by an unmarried women who receives food stamps and public housing or rent supplements to feed and house her children.

Her kids are educated free from Head Start to K-12 and fed by school breakfast and lunch programs. Should they graduate high school, Pell Grants and student loans are there for college.

For cash, mom gets welfare checks. If she takes a job, she will receive an earned income tax credit to supplement her income. If she loses her job, she can get 99 weeks of unemployment checks.

For health care, there is Medicaid and Obamacare. And like 45 percent of all Hispanic households, she has no federal income tax liability.

Why should this woman vote for a party that will cut taxes she does not pay, but reduce benefits she does receive?

Rename Romney’s gifts “government services,” writes Aaron Blake citing a Washington Post poll, and one discovers that 67 percent of Latinos favor “a larger government with more services.”

These are big government people. And why should they not be?

According to Heather Mac Donald, writing in National Review, a 2011 survey found that California Hispanics by four to one objected more to the GOP on class-warfare grounds—the party “favors only the rich,” Republicans are “selfish”—than to the GOP stand on immigration.

Writes Mac Donald: California’s Hispanics will likely prove more decisive in passing Proposition 30, to raise state income taxes to 13.3 percent, the highest level in the nation, than to Obama’s victory.

Nor is this unusual. Populist programs to stick it to the rich have always had an appeal south of the border.

There are 50 million Hispanics in America today. California is lost to the GOP. Nevada and Colorado are slipping away. Arizona and Texas are next up on the block.

With the U.S. Hispanic population in 2050 projected to reach 130 million, the acolytes of Karl Rove have their work cut out for them.

17 COMMENTS

  1. I haven’t read anything on The original Rockefeller. He may have been one of the progressive era bastards that brought prohibition and left our economy a quasimodo cripple that can barely ring a wall street opening market bell.

    I have assymetric hate of English practices worldwide, including what they’ve done to New Amsterdam and the mocking bastardy we have in the NYSE and NASDAQ stock exchanges versus the free reign Dutch capitalistic tradition it has counterfeited.

    I know Vanderbilts brought rails to the masses and Carneghie broughstructural steel to the masses. Maybe at some point they became Darth Vader? I hate crony capitalism, but how do I get oil in my crankcase without choosing the lesser of a few evil cronies

    I want moonshine, not Big Liquor. I want Al’s dirt road moonshine oil if such a thing could exist. How do we foster and increase the Agora. I prefer bootleg media and Craigslist rideshare gypsy taxis to take me home from the bar.

    • Tor, read Gary Allen’s “The Rockefeller Files”–you’ll understand why I confuse images of Lucifer with David Rockefeller’s face.

      They are deeply, irredeemably evil.

      A bunch of inbred sister-fucking eugenic psychopathic authoritarians.

      Very Bad People.

      Everyone back to work; the Two Minutes’ Hate is concluded.

      • I read the beginning, its on http://whale.to. Also skimmed them on wikipedia. The relevant Rock’s are JD, JD junior, Nelson, and Nelson Junior. JD was a social conservative hardass. His successor got nabbed for bribing congressman, so JD junior separated the business from the philanthropy. You’re right in that from there forward they did shit like create the Bureau of Public Hygeinne and other fascist nanny state boondoggles.

        Look what the bastards did to Bill Gates. He should flee to Wenzhou and start over in Chinese rebel hinterlands. Microsoft got fooked up.

        Trying to be a businessman is kind of like Elmo’s Song. You turn into a blood soaked puppet singing songs to braindead kommunist kiddies. If the strings can’t be cut to pedophile puppetmasters and the nightmare on sesame street. What hope is there for anyone who wants to enjoy economic freedom.

        Hahaha TSA hands up my 8 year old’s rectum tickles. Give me your wallet, give me your guns, Elmo’s Song. Step into this cage, pull down your pants. Elmo Song. Lalala Lalala. I’m watching you 24 hours a day. On our way to where the air is free.

        Can you tell me your unadjusted gross income, please? That’s how we get to nightmare on Sesame Street. Give me your money or I’ll shoot you down, this is Free Shit Homo Prison Puppetry that you get on Sesame Street…

        • Gates, like Walton, did not play ball with the government. That is why they were targeted. Once their businesses started playing ball the problems largely stopped. When they turn up again it’s probably because someone in government has his hand out.

  2. Mittens is absolutely correct. 107 millionAmericans are receiving some kind of entitlement. This isn’t even including the folks on social security and medicare. Or the 9 million on disability. I respect Mittens, because he isn’t just a government parasite.

    Bain Capital owns or funds dominos pizza, burger king, and amc cable channel; one of the last few “free” channels in existence.

    George Romney worked for AMC motors. He is the one who brought us the AMC Rambler.

    Capitalism requires capitalists. Maybe Donald Trump is an a-hole, but its men like him that acquire surplus wealth and allow us to have gaudy skyscrapers, golf courses, and executive air travel.

    I don’t know that much, but there seems to be two types of societies in the west. Capital accumulating societies like Israel, and emotive chimp run societies like the Gaza strip. Gaza is head and shoulders above ape-fest Egypt which is 100 years behind Gaza.

    America is in negative growth mode if you use impartial 3rd party evaluations of our economy. Just look at our GDP when measured in ounces of gold and it becomes clear.

    Trying to keep the charade going is a losing proposition. There are millions of Americans whose real productivity is not even a fraction of Chinese or Mexican labor. We have to give up the entitlements of the Government Prison Economy, including the artificial minimum wage, or face total collapse and an extended American Dark Ages and technological extinction.

      • I swear by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger and all that is contained in the holy writ of Wikipedia Torah.

        Being a big fan of AMC channel which bain capital funds to provide me The Walking Dead, there is a tipping point where a capitalist becomes a zombie capitalist and finally a statist zombie. Being a governor makes you an unclean mass butcher who deserves only deportation unless your Ron Paul or Gary Johnson or Jesse Ventura and make government smaller than it was before you took office.

        I find voting a waste and grand theft polical felonious thuggery. Mittens every word on the campaign trail was pidgeon coop cooing of the fools golden rulers and I piss in their general direction and hope their roosts are all retaken in the great american awakening to come.

  3. I wish there was a swear word that would capture the disgusting nature of the likes of Bobby Jindal and Chris Christie. The best I can think of is Poucher. These cradle to grave political tit-suckers are not mammals, but rather a type of marsupial that lives and breeds in the exo-cunt of a Nanny State she-bitch goverment.
    Jindal is a Rhode Scholar British Socialist treasonous bastard no different than Barack Obama. A degree in Political Science with Health Policy emphasis qualifies him to do what. He is a high ranking Free Shit Army officer, nothing more.
    Chris CHristie is a US attorney and lobbyist. A fat fleeced fuck who never did a day of work besides collecting tributes for the Free Shit Army Government.

    At least Mittens used the questionably obtained loot of his politically connected family to produce things of value.

    I wish Buchanan would be more like Gerald Ford than Nixon and Reagan who he also worked for. There seems to be a lack of mental capacity among conservatives and republicans to understand the value of things created by the social means over things created by the political means.

      • I don’t know enough about Mittens to agree or disagree. My best recollection is Papa Mittens, George Romney was an engineer with some patents. At some point he became a crony capitalist and then a government. My understanding of Austrian Economics is capital accumulated through social means is a vital component of capitalism. Mittens capital , was it earned in free market, or through political means? That is the question.

        Let’s take Rockefeller, the original Ohio oil man, not Jay the congressman great grandson. Getting all that oil out of the ground, where it had no value, and creating diesel, heating oil, gasoline is a incredible value adding wealth enhancing feat. Creating a monopoly or fighting dirty does not alter that fact economically.

        Breaking up the Rockefeller Standard Oil Trust was an act of state power destruction of value. As much as I admire Alex Jones. He is one example of a man who attacks big business indiscriminately. If you condemn all big business out of hand, you condemn capitalism itself.

        I would agree with doing away with corporations all together, but not with taking or destroying their property. I have no problem with oil companies being partnerships responsible for their spills and societal damages, but to be anti-big business as a principle becomes a kind of collectivism.

        Would you say Sam Walton, and now his heirs are creating value, or do you see Walmart as a societal evil just like the federal government?

        • I am only discussing what Mittens did for a career, not what he made off of investing daddy’s money. Willard made a career of vulture capitalism. Of using cheap fed money to leverage up dying companies, taking the fees and salaries and watching the company die from the debt load.

          I don’t understand why you are trying to draw me into a discussion on Wally’s world, but Sam Walton appeared to build his business by pleasing customers. His heirs however have seen fit to start playing ball with government to get what they want along with tax breaks and so forth. As they do so you’ll notice that the media stories and government office holder talk of walmart being evil is falling away.

          As to Rockefeller… “Competition is a sin” aren’t the words of someone who plays in a free market. They are the words of someone who uses politics. I don’t recall any property being taken. Sure they had to rearrange ownership and control and so forth, but probably came out ahead in the end. Especially with the new government power that was established that they could then make use of.

          • Government produces nothing of value. Gas that I can put in my car is a value. THERE IS SOME COGNITIVE DISSONaNCE IN MY WORDS, BECAUSE I am at my conceptual limits here, but I can’t agree that Rockefeller=Uncle Sam. I can agree that foundations and estate trusts are a different story. It does seem questionable that Rockefeller is no longer innovating or bringing new products to market. Rothschilds are pure finance and pure zombie capitalists. Does Rothschild=Rockefeller?

            How do I expunge ego, emotion, and emoness from my writing? I’m not at the Led Zeppelin=Deep Zen Pill aloof rocknroll Hunter Thompson level, though I do have the authentic Gonzo. I apologize to all for any immature clover uncoolness in my writing, if it seems I am attacking, then I am attacking, not my conscious objective tho.

            Saying you have a right to living under companies with real competition is like saying you have a right to government healthcare or retirement. Rockefeller oil “competes” with Koch, BP, Petrobas, Saudaramco and so on. Like Ayn Rand said, the question is who is going to stop Rockefeller. Isn’t he the Ellis Wyatt in Atlas Shrugged.

            ASKING bill Gates not to bundle Internet Explorer is to use government force to enforce altruism on a legitimate economic entity. There is no single source to look to for guidance. Both raw milk and GMOs must be allowed to fight for their existence.

            Saying there’s a right ethical way to do business and that Rockefeller Oil is outside of this package deal is anti-reason and a type of whim worship, from what Iive learned reading mises.org and austrian economic theory.

          • Those who use government to beat their competition are not free market as far as I am concerned. Furthermore I didn’t say Rockefeller never created anything of value, I stated Willard Romney didn’t.

            As to the Rockefellers all I can suggest is reading “The Rockefeller File” if you already haven’t and for some reason discarded what is written there.

            Ethical and using government are two entirely different things. I am only considering the use of government, the use of the political means. The use of the legal monopoly on violence. Once someone does this they are no longer part of the productive sector as far as I am concerned.

            The area of patents is questionable because if company A doesn’t do patents company B will and company A will lose the right to produce what it created. So beyond that sort of thing, to demand regulations, licenses, etc and so on is clearly the political means as far as I am concerned.

            • So the other day I was driving to Lowes, fumbling with the radio dial in the truck… I hear Ruuuuussssshhhh Limbaugh’s porcine gabblings and decide to listen to it for a moment. He asks: “Why doesn’t freedom sell”? In other words, Mittens Romney (!!) represented “freedom” and “it didn’t sell”! I was dying to jump through the dashboard and come out in Ruuuuuuuussssssssshhh’s EBT studio to explain to him that Mittens and the GOP lose (repeatedly) because they are obvious tools of cartel-crony capitalism and as unintelligent and ignorant as the lowing cattle masses are, even they aren’t falling for that anymore. Not when they can vote the other team and get more for themselves – rather than more for Halliburton.

              Fag-bashing and a 6,000 year old earf only takes you so far these days.

          • The most difficult thing to deal with IME with the economic freedom message is the obvious big-business crony capitalist ties of team R and pennies of plunder the team D shares with people.

            Team D giving out a fraction of a penny on the dollar of the plunder to the masses is why they win. Republicans get up there and say they are going to cut PBS or some other plunder the little people utilize and then wonder why they lose. Democrats got masses of people to sign on to the plunder system. Republicans got the rank file employees of the military industrial complex to sign on.

            The freedom message works with people who have gotten nothing. Who are cut off from the plunder system or have been plundered. When austerity hits, this may represent another opportunity to gain ground. People who are cut off from the plunder system are more likely to accept the chance at prosperity through freedom. They can tolerate being unfree if they get something… but when they get nothing freedom should look better to them.

  4. Interesting analysis.

    What happens when there is no more (not enough) money to tax to pay for all these services?

    Will we have $50,000 “millionaires” and start attacking them for not paying their”fair share”?

    I guess I have a hard time blaming someone that votes for their self interest, even if it will only work temporarily. This will not bode well for the country.

    • The Free Shit Army will either ascend – or be beaten back.

      It’s either 1917 Russia – or 1776 America.

      No middle ground. Make your choice. I’ve made mine!

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