Also, he seems to have an unusually good memory for details.
Sometimes.
Good point.
These incidents, occurring at such a young age, aren’t nearly proof that Mitt these days is a colossal douchebag. But for those of us who realize that he is in fact a colossal douchebag, it helps us figure out exactly what sort of colossal douchebag he is. And nothing in his life that I’ve seen, from elementary school to today, has convinced me that his sympathies aren’t always and forever with the privileged over the downtrodden.
Exactly.
As a 12 year old I shot a BB gun at a cow. Actually aimed just in front of her so a small cloud of dust rose up and startled her. (Even then I knew not to actually hit the beast.) To this day I have a regret about doing that small thing. That’s why I cannot understand Mitt forgetting about the nasty prank against the blind teacher and the assault on another kid. He has no conscious?
No. He’s on the record as having wanted to expand Bush’s torture program and seeing to it his victims have no legal recourse. That Romney’s a lousy human being is beyond question.
Apparently, empathy wasn’t one of the criteria they Turing tested the software for.
Where the hell was the leader? Did no one notice or do anything?
But I’m getting the impression that Mitt has no inner moral sense - plenty of an outer one imposed by LDS, but no self-critical thinking, When he tells a story he never evaluates his past actions for correctness. It is kind of like Bush never thinking he made a mistake but worse, since Bush seems to have appreciated that he wasn’t acting properly in his wild days.
Maybe it is why Romney can shift positions so radically and not feel the slightest need to explain this.
That was delightful! Thanks for the link.
It may have been the case a few decades ago that things like school altercations were dealt with solely in-house, but it certainly is not like that now. In this age of zero tolerance policies, school fistfights are routinely prosecuted. I am a public defender in juvenile court, and I’d guess that 25% of my caseload involves stuff that would have merited a 3-day suspension at worst when I was a high-schooler in the early '90s. I know of schools, both urban and suburban, that codify in their student handbooks the fact that both parties in fistfights and shoving matches will be prosecuted, regardless of who started it!
The important thing to take from this is that Mitt has not grown from this incident in the way that I’d hope a leader would. I believe that the incident took place because of the independent corroboration of several others involved, as well as the fact that Mitt did not immediately deny it, as he would if it were fabricated. “I don’t remember” are weasel words used by someone who is uncomfortable with his actions but knows that they occurred and therefore can’t outright deny them. So if it happened, and I believe that to be the case, Mitt had a real opportunity. He could explain that the culture in the 1960s was different than that of today, but even given that, looking back he is aware that he did a terrible, unforgivable thing. That in reflection, he realizes that childhood bullying can leave scars that remain long after the hair grows back. He did none of these things, and to the casual observer it seems like he didn’t grow at all. A shame, because this could have been a real chance for him to appear more human, grounded and real. A good leader knows his flaws and constantly strives to be a better man. A bad leader “doesn’t recall” his past mistakes.
OK, so… is it because Martin Hyde so frequently says such colossally ignorant things that almost nobody bothered to respond to this particular example?
People who are known to be violent and show disregard for the rights and well-being of other people are fine as they are because he claims to have “observed” multiple bullied kids become serial killers? What?
OK, first, that’s not how the real world works, at all. Serial killing is an escalation of bullying behavior. The psychopathic traits used to identify killers are the same ones chronic bullies have. Second, even if those who were bullied were somehow more likely to become serial killers than the bullies themselves, which they aren’t, that would just be more reason to stop bullies, not less.
But then Martin’s actions here seem to be attempts at bullying people who disagree with him, so it’s no surprise that he’s defending the behavior.
I think I speak for the entire internet when I say “yes”
I’m wearing Allen-Edmonds most of the time, I paid good money for my shoes too, and they’re probably a lot more comfortable than women’s shoes.
My post was actually one of compassion. It’s basically beyond question (and is supported by the DSM-IV) that if you were born with XY chromosome and male genitalia you’re a man, and believing you’re “really a woman” is a type of mental illness.
I’ve not said all people who feel that way need to be locked up, just like not all schizophrenics need to be locked up. What I have said is the ones who are so far gone they really want to physically mutilate their bodies, to try and change reality to match their delusions, need help. They need help inside of a mental hospital until they can be brought back to some level of functioning without this dangerous desire for self-mutilation.
I think it’s very depressing that, because of political concerns, medical science has essentially given up on trying to do anything to fix the mental illness that is the root of these people’s problems. Instead, the cheap fix (mutilate them so they can happily live their delusions) has basically become the preferred way to fix these people. I’ve mentioned before that in certain extreme circumstances I might be okay with doctors doing these mutilations, but by and large I think they should be prohibited as they violate the core concept of “do no harm” to the patient.
Martin Hyde is conservative compassion incarnate.
I don’t know that I have posts explicitly defending Obamacare. My general opinion of it was health care reform is a good goal, and something we should do. But the political street fight in the run up to passing Obamacare has made it a mess. It got some good, needed reforms passed but I don’t see that it’s really done enough to control health care costs. Which are the true source of our long term health care crisis, not people who are uninsured. Obama approached the problem as though the uninsured were the number one problem, I’d have approached it as costs growing much faster than inflation being the number one problem. I don’t know how to control those costs, but I’ve long said (and said many times) single payer is better than what we do now, and is better than Obamacare.
It’s too complicated an issue for me to have a very valid opinion, but something I’ve always said is this. When LASIK surgery first came out, it was $5,000 an eye around here. It’s now down to $500/eye at some places in my area. Optometry is by and large something in which the consumers are the ones making the price decisions and they are laid out very carefully. Vision insurance typically is just a discount system (being in the pool gets you a discount on products/services), but a large portion of the bill is still typically paid for by the consumer. The optometrists recognize this and if you’ve been to an optometrist they lay out everything very clearly for you. If you want this coating it will be $39 extra dollars, this frame is $220, this one is $180, if you want us to use this new photographic equipment to get a high resolution image of your eye it costs $40 but you don’t have to get your eye dilated if you do it.
When you go into a hospital for “real” medical treatment, how many of you have been asked “okay, we think we need to run these 4 tests, this one costs x, this one costs y, this one costs z. The benefits are a, b, c and d, I advise you to get them, but let me know which ones you want?” That’s never happened to me, ever. The last time I was in the hospital I was ran through three tests on my heart and at no point did the doctor ask if I wanted them or offer to explain what the cost to me of these tests are. For a man my age I’m lucky in that I’ve almost never been to hospitals, so maybe people who have gone a lot more than me have different experiences, but I doubt it. The entire system isn’t really set up for the doctor to even be able to go over pricing and such with you like an optometrist does. I don’t think most doctors can genuinely tell you how much your out of pocket expense will be impacted by x test, because they have to have an entire staff of people to wade through myriad different insurers and reimbursement plans before they could even begin to get to a real number.
So what I’m ultimately saying is, I don’t know why optometry is subjected to consistent downward pressure on prices, where technology makes things cheaper over time (like it does in say, the electronics market or almost any other market) but I wonder if there isn’t a way to make the rest of medicine more like optometry. Because instead of new technology applying downward pressure on pricing in normal medicine, it seems like it increases cost exponentially.
I’m here for entertainment, not to change hearts and minds.
I think it’s a piss poor attitude that anyone who doesn’t go into military service is a coward. I’ve never felt that way about service. If someone criminally dodged the draft, that is wrong. Romney was on a religious mission, and that has been a valid way to avoid the draft for a long time. We didn’t make Quakers or Amish fight in WWI or WWII. (Though they could be drafted into non-combat service.)
Unless we think Romney’s Mormonism was just a put-on to avoid the draft, I have no desire to fault him morally for it. I don’t see how it is any different than all the college deferments.
You wouldn’t, would you?
Explain how it is different. Both were legal, under the laws of the time, ways to exempt yourself from being drafted at that age at that time.