However you define irrationality few people could deny that a good definition would be you want A, B prevents A and yet you do B. For example, say you want to stay alive, yet for no reason whatsoever you attack someone much more powerful than you and who takes pleasure in killing. This act ultimately leads to your death. You wanted A, (staying alive) yet you did B (attacked someone) which prevented A. That is an irrational act. It will now be shown that Mitt Romney and those who vote for him are much more irrational than Obama and his supporters. By definition cooperation is good and noncooperation is bad. Let’s take a small moment to prove this.
A and B desire C and believe C is good
A and B cannot obtain good alone
A and B can obtain C through cooperation which is called D
Therefore D is good
Cooperation is simply the joining of resources to obtain a good, hence by definition cooperation is good. Let us grant for the sake of argument that Mitt Romney has never illegally evaded taxes although that is probably not true. Most likely he has cut some corners but nothing so outrageous that it would come to the attention of the IRS. Even republicans will admit however that Romney has gone to extensive lengths to evade as much taxes as is legally possible. Gawker obtained numerous files documenting his offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands and the response in the business press was that this is not news.
By seeking to evade as much taxes as is legally possible Romney is essentially being uncooperative. The goods that come from taxes, to name a few these are, protection from crime, security from war, roads, education, job training, etc. Aside from the back to the nature types, all of us want these goods. The dispute between Republicans and Democrats is not whether or not tax by itself is good, but what to tax and how much. Fortunately that highly technical debate is irrelevant to this discussion. What is relevant is Romney’s irrationality. To restate, trying to evade taxes even when it is quasi legal is fundamentally irrational. It amounts to wanting A but doing B which prevents A. Romney wants the goods of taxation yet his actions cause the exact opposite.
Does Romney really believe that cooperation is an unequivocal good? Apparently not. He is at rock-bottom fundamentally uncooperative. He does not understand that if you want the goods of cooperation (roads, security, well-educated peers) then you have to sacrifice individual luxuries. That is the essence of cooperation, restraining one’s short-term personal desires for the sake of long-term greater goods which come through communal work. Tax is the engine that drives cooperation and by striving as much as possible to avoid it, Romney is essentially uncooperative.
Uncooperative? I would say that is an major understatement.
Let us look at the things that makes America “GREAT”.
One: the fundamental thing that separates a first world country and a third
world country is the infrastructure. Look at Africa and notice that they don’t
have the infrastructure we have, roads, hospitals, sanitation, schools, the things we take
for granted in the west. That infrastructure is the very definition of a first world country.
Without that infrastructure, we are a third world country, it is as simple as that.
And what pays for that infrastructure? Taxes! Nothing more, nothing less.
Taxes is the basis for what defines a first world country and a third world country.
So if you reduce taxes significantly, you are taking a country from first world
country to third world country. Is that why our American ancestors sacrifice so much for? So
we can greatly diminish our country? When Willard says, I will cut taxes, he is diminishing our country
by reducing our ability to maintain our infrastructure. Any time anyone say they are willing to diminish
our country for a few bucks, they are un-American. Pure and simple. Willard is tearing down the work
of generations of Americans who work to build up that infrastructure. Generations who gave america
their blood, sweat and tears to build the roads and hospitals and bridges and sewers that currently gives
us the standard of living we have today. I accuse Mitt Romney of being Un-American.
The second thing is the GOP attempting to disenfranchise Americans from voting.
This fundamental right is the basis of american democracy. Soldiers from several wars
died preserving american rights, one of which is the right to vote. To disenfranchise voters
means you are denying them one of the fundamental rights of an american. The right to decide
one’s path without interference is the basis of the Revolutionary war and every war since then.
To take away the right to vote is to make the sacrifice of thousands of americans lives in vain.
We push the american model as the model of freedom around the world and yet if we disenfranchise
americans from voting, we say we don’t even believe in our own crap and you shouldn’t either.
As Mitt Romney has never disavowed this GOP attempts to disenfranchise americans, I accuse
Mitt Romney of being Un-American.
Freedom. This the GOP rally call. The freedom to act as you see fit without government interference
has been the america ideal since its founding. The GOP has attempted to deny Americans basic rights
enjoyed by other Americans by government interference, denying freedom to Americans. Basic rights
such as who you can love and have sex with and who you can marry. The GOP promote freedoms for
economic but not the personal. Why am I free to make money and hire who I want and yet not free
to marry who I want or have sex with? To deny freedom for some is to deny freedom for all. Freedom
must be for everyone or its not for anyone. I am a old white guy who has been married for a long time,
why should I enjoy a right that is not available for everyone on no other grounds then religious?
I am not free if the government can tell my fellow americans who they can marry or not marry.
Freedom stands for freedom for everyone or it stand for nothing. Conditional freedom is not freedom,
because it allows freedom for some and not others. I reject this conditional freedom as being
un-american and I accuse Mitt Romney of being Un-american.
Romney has an extremely low likeability factor, even worse than Richard
Nixon, and that’s saying a lot. So even his own Reeps don’t like him and
feel ashamed to admit they’ll vote for him just because they hate Obama
because he’s Black.
I would vote for Romney. I guess I’m just one of those crazy Republicans who think that debt is NOT a good thing. Also I’m disgusted how Obama constantly tries to befriend Muslims that kill his own diplomats. Hes pathetic.
I don’t think that it’s fundamentally irrational. Seeing as there are 350 million or so Americans, and the majority do not earn enough to hire top accountants to set up offshore companies for them, even if rich people stop paying their taxes then there will probably be enough to support the country. People like Romney (assuming that he avoided taxes, which seems to be true even by his own admission) want the benefits of taxation and want other people to contribute the money necessary to support those benefits. An immoral, money-grabbing snooty-pants attitude yes. Irrational no.
As to befriending radical Muslims - the Repubs have a long history of that, they are closer to the Saudi royals than the Demos are, and it was under the Republican president Reagan that billions were spent on radicalising, funding, arming and training the mujahideen, and it was under the Republican president Bush (II) that relatives of the man supposedly responsible for 9/11 were allowed to fly out of the country even when pretty much all planes were grounded…
It’s amazing to me how many fundamentalist Christians are about to vote for who they consider a non-Christian (Romney, being a Mormon) over a Christian (Obama). Am I the only one amazed by this?
A) Man who says he’s a Mormon (“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”)and talks like one.
B) Man who says he’s Christian, but says… “Obviously those Christians don’t read their Bible… but our Holy Koran says….” And also makes a full body bow to the King of Islam when they meet. No national ruler does that and it isn’t like he wasn’t informed.
It’s not much more bonkers than vanilla Christianity. It makes all the mistakes of regular Christianity, and adds some more, but it doesn’t add any new types of mistakes. It’s the same story, plus an extra book or two with the same sorts of crazy stuff. It’s exactly the same sort of bonkers. I’d even venture to say it’s a good deal more consistent as a religion as well.
And it’s not really amazing if you note that, as James S Saint perhaps hints at, Republicans don’t really view Obama as a Christian either. So, it’s between one guy who says he’s Christian but they don’t consider Christian, but holds some of their political beliefs, vs a guy who says he’s Christian but they don’t consider Christian and doesn’t hold the same fundamental political beliefs. They’re equal on the (incredibly trivial, if you ask me) religion side from that point of view, and clearly not equal on the (obviously far less trivial) political side.
For the record, I don’t vote, don’t consider myself Conservative or Republican. Both sides just talk past each other with insults and snide remarks, as exemplified in the political threads on ILP. Politics is, at the moment (and perhaps inevitably) incredibly divorced from philosophy, yes, even here on ILP. It’s supposed to be rooted in ethical philosophy, but let’s be honest, nothing could be further from the truth. You might try to match up YOUR politics with philosophy, and you might even (probably not) put great effort into making sure it’s as unbiased and objective as possible, but if that’s the case, you’re the exception, not the rule. Most people on either side vote the way they vote not from rigorous philosophy, but from the same kind of mentality that leads people to have loyalty to sports teams.
This is just not true. Do you actually know what mormons believe, in detail? It’s not the same story at all. In fact, they consider all Christian creeds to be an abomination. It’s another level of bonkers.
What’s amazing is that they don’t view him as a Christian. He says he’s one, acts like one… He bowed to someone or other? No idea, but I was planning a trip to Italy and thought I might visit the Vatican and I definitely planned to learn how to do that little thing with your hands to your head and heart. It’s about respecting others, no matter what problems you may have with them. I realize some people may think that kind of respect isn’t deserved, I understand, but whatever. I guess I’m generous. Like Obama presumably is. Plus it’s just plain ol’ politics - of the good sort.
I know what mormons believe in detail. I’ve read the entire book of mormon. I used to be mormon.
You only think it’s another level of bonkers because you were raised in a world where versions of vanilla christianity is the norm. Try to look at it from an alien anthropologist’s perspective. Do you think they would consider Mormonism fundamentally more bonkers than, say, Catholicism? I don’t think so. I don’t think either of them are fundamentally more or less bonkers than Greek religion either. It’s all the same shit with different stories. Christianity would be just as bonkers to you if you were unfamiliar with it.
It’s not another level. It’s the same shit, with a new twist. Mormonism is probably less different from vanilla Christianity than Christianity is from Judaism.
Haha, You’re probably right about the alien anthropologist. I think they are all nuts, to be sure. But if you used to be mormon, I’ll take your word for it - you probably know way better than me how similar they actually are. I sort of misspoke too - instead of “another level…”, I should have said “another layer of bonkers”.
I think that suspicions from the right are encouraged by reports about how reference to god had been taken out from the democrats natl conv. It required a vote.