Dear Mr. Romney

In my last post I pointed out why it is I don't like Newt Gingrich; now I want to move on to Mitt Romney. I will say up front that Romney doesn't bother me nearly as much as Gingrich. This may be partially because I am also a Mormon, so I get the weird religion thing. Mostly it's because he's not the sleazeball that Gingrich is. Despite his lack of dislike-ability sleazeball-wise, Romney and I disagree on quite a few issues.

In Mitt Romney's 2008 concession speech after losing the primary election he declared that his reason for conceding the race was that he believed a win by the democrats would mean losing the war on terror.

They would retreat, declare defeat.
And the consequence of that would be devastating. It would mean attacks on America, launched from safe havens that would make Afghanistan under the Taliban look like child's play. About this, I have no doubt.

 Somewhat ironically he also stated that John McCain would be successful in Iraq and would "track down and execute Osama Bin Laden" implying that a Democrat would not.



I don't disagree with Mitt that terrorism is a big problem; nobody really does. What I do disagree with is the idea that we are at war with terrorism and that it can be won. The problem with addressing terrorism as a war is that any war that America has fought in the past has been against an actual enemy nation, one that can concede defeat or call a truce. There is no such ability within the terror networks of Al Qadea! Even if Osama Bin Laden had done exactly that, he would have been disavowed by his followers and the very act of concession on his part would be used as a recruiting tool for the terrorists. They would point to Bin Laden's defeat as proof that America had to be stopped and they would gain followers. Terrorist organizations only grow stronger when military might is brought against them. People in the areas that are occupied by foreign troops feel oppressed, and oppression only helps create an environment where terrorist recruiters can thrive. I believe that the only real way to fight terrorism long term is education and understanding.


I've gone off on a tangent. That was just one area where I disagree with Romney. The other area where we really disagree is government regulation. In another section of that same concession speech, Romney says that we need to "get out that weed whacker and take it to regulations..." Now this was just part of what he said, but it's the attitude that all government regulations are bad that really gets to me. This is a big one that a lot of republicans seem to have adopted. Michele Bachmann campaigned that she would abolish the EPA altogether. This is part of the reason that I believe Bachmann is a sith... because only a sith deals in absolutes.

I don't think that you'd find anyone out there that doesn't agree that there are some regulations that are overly cumbersome and actually do hurt businesses; but to make the jump directly to the idea that all regulation is bad and we need to take a weed whacker to them is a whole lot of overkill. The whole purpose behind government regulation is to protect people. There can be a lot of changes to those regulations to ensure that they are doing what they were intended to do without getting too much in the way of businesses; but they need to be done with a scalpel, not a weed whacker.