Today, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Reno, Nevada, Mitt Romney renewed his allegiance to the Obama-Bush Warfare State, only with a cherry on top.
Or make that a Daisy Cutter.
Romney accused BHO, aka, Killer Drone extraordinaire—the man who has “developed” new theaters of war for America across the world—of compromising the US’s bloated military-industrial-complex by cutting its budget.
“I am not ashamed of American power,” Romney told the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention …, adding “I do not view America as just one more point on the strategic map, one more power to be balanced.”
…Romney said he wanted to bring an “American century” in which the United States has the world’s strongest economy and military that secures peace through its strength.
“And if by absolute necessity we must employ it, we must wield our strength with resolve,” Romney said to applause. “In an American century, we lead the free world and the free world leads the entire world.”
Since Republicans and Democrats have comparable records on sustaining the Welfare-Warfare State, you should remember that, “each party operates as a necessary counterweight in a partnership designed to keep the pendulum of power swinging in perpetuity from the one set of colluding quislings to the other, and back. … No sooner do the Republicans come to power, than they move to the left. When they get their turn, Democrats shuffle to the right. At some point, McCain reaches across the aisle and the creeps converge.”
UPDATE I: In reply to the thread on Facebook:
While I feel immense sympathy for the poor men who were drafted, I don’t begrudge those, like Romney, who were able to avoid the draft. What I despise is when the same people talk up wars that others’ children must fight. I want a law enacted now that would draft the Bush and McCain girls and the Romney boys to the front. Oh, I already wrote a column in “support of the draft…for politicians and bureaucrats.”
UPDATE II: Romney’s unbridled, Bellicose American exceptionalism:
From Berlin to Cairo to the United Nations, President Obama has shared his view of America and its place among nations. I have come here today to share mine.
I am an unapologetic believer in the greatness of this country. I am not ashamed of American power. I take pride that throughout history our power has brought justice where there was tyranny, peace where there was conflict, and hope where there was affliction and despair. I do not view America as just one more point on the strategic map, one more power to be balanced. I believe our country is the greatest force for good the world has ever known, and that our influence is needed as much now as ever.
About Mormonism and American exceptionalism, Amy Sullivan at The New Republic says this:
…an enthusiastic belief in American exceptionalism is part of Mormon culture and theology. There is the sacred significance of America as the setting for the Book of Mormon and the birth of the Latter-Day Saints. But there is also the belief by early LDS leaders that Mormons would one day rescue the country when it threatened to fall apart.
In an essay on this topic last month, Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune included this quote from Brigham Young: “There is not a Territory in the Union that is looked upon with so suspicious an eye as is Utah, and yet it is the only part of the nation that cares anything about the Constitution.” Bagley explained:
The Saints saw themselves as a link in a chain beginning with the Pilgrims, continuing through the Founding Fathers, and leading up to the establishment of Christ’s righteous government.
My position is this: “the United States, by virtue of its origins and ideals,” was unique. But most Americans know nothing of the ideas that animated their country’s founding. In fact, they are more likely to hold ideas in opposition to the classical liberal philosophy of the founders, and hence wish to see the aggrandizement of the coercive state and the fulfillment of their own needs and desires through war and welfare.