I'd say there's a clear difference between "my job is not to give you a handout" and "my job is not to worry about you". If the President can help people in some other way than a handout, terrific - people don't want fucking handouts, and of course that's what makes the first remark somewhat insulting, but whatever, fine, roll with it.
Well, I mean, that's it exactly. Someone asked him for something reasonable (I looked it up, it was birth control coverage) and he dismissed her as asking for handouts. (Exact quote: "If you're looking for free stuff you don't have to pay for, vote for the other guy -- that's what he's all about, OK? That's not, that’s not what I'm about.")
So maybe the difference is that the roughly 50% of the population he dismissed on THAT occasion was women.
Missed this before. Here's the thing.
100% of women don't need birth control.
100% of women who need birth control don't need government assistance to buy it.
So the man's not saying "You can't have birth control." He's saying, "If you really need birth control, you should buy your own instead of demanding the government (or your employer) give it to you." And I'll let you in on a little secret:
I completely agree with him on this point. It's not really a medically vital thing. And it approaches the problem from exactly the wrong angle: Birth control pills are covered, condoms are not. So we're not talking about something that promotes sexual health from the right direction at all, it's just something really convenient for women that they feel entitled to.
(If you bring up emergency contraceptives in obvious use cases I will punch you in the nose. That is not what we are talking about here.)
Does most of the country disagree on that point? Is it tone-deaf? Should Romney have kept his mouth shut about it? Yes, yes, and sure. Am I attacking the cooters of women everywhere? Oh, fuck off.
But the difference here is that, okay, maaaaaybe women don't (or at the very least not all women do)
need guaranteed birth control coverage, but most agree that they should have it and Romney's telling them "No." That's aggravating, and it will cost him points, but it's not
unacceptable, and quite honestly there are examples to show (cough California cough) that sometimes you need to look at the majority and tell them that they need to really check their entitlement. That's leadership.
But everyone needs
something. People right now need a
lot of something. And most of these things are stuff that pretty much everyone except the Ron Paul Nation will agree really are vital things. Food. Medicine for unavoidable illnesses. Shelter. Education. Opportunities. Hope.
Normally, people would be able (with minimal assistance) to bootstrap up those things, because it turns out we're not actually a nation of babbies after all. Problem is, people right now
can't, largely because of the swirling Catch-22 that is the modern job market (only employed people can be employed; no people are employed; THEREFORE all people are fucked). Romney's message up to now has been "Okay, well, I'm against feeding all that straight to you, because I believe in hard work. But WHAT I WANT TO DO FOR YOU is to fix the goddam state of affairs so that you can actually bootstrap again, and then we won't need to talk about it any more."
Great, fine, whatever, do it. But then behind closed doors, the message becomes, "Well,
those people caught in the Catch-22 are there because it's their own fault, so fuck 'em. I DON'T WANT TO DO ANYTHING FOR THEM."
In actuality, he
is going against his own stated policy; he has no interest in creating jobs or any of those things he's been talking about for months. It might happen
by accident, but if it does it would honestly probably just irritate the man that those lazy fucks in the 47% churn pool are benefiting from his wonderful Romneyness.
He can't say "I hate you but I plan to help you anyway" any more. He got caught red-handed admitting that that is a complete lie. He got caught telling a lie.
So now when he says "If you're looking for free stuff you don't have to pay for, vote for the other guy -- that's what he's all about, OK? That's not, that’s not what I'm about.", the implication in most people's heads
isn't that he's about something
other than free stuff, that will benefit you just as much (if not more) than free stuff would. It was before. Now it is not.
To
you and I, those kinds of statements always sounded exactly like what they were: "Fuck off." But to the less cynical, it sounded like: "I'm going to help you work for it instead, wouldn't that be better?" To most of the rest of the nation, this awareness is brand new, and it's a huge and bitter pill to swallow. Imagine
just now realizing that everything he had said for the last few months are exactly the way that you, Thad, have always interpreted it.
The Krikkiters have just gotten their first glimpse of the universe.
The reason it took this long is because people aren't as smart as you, and need instructions on how to use toothpicks. So cut them a little slack, all right?