OPINION: We all know someone who is not quite “all there.” The normal human connections with the world are missing, twisted, or distorted. Interacting with these people is often tense or even disturbing because their reactions and statements are at odds with reality. But imagine if an entire nation had to interact with people like this.
I have this friend who is a little, well, nutsy-goofus. Sorry for getting technical right at the start of this piece but it is better that you know the situation so you can cope with what follows. We are going to be talking about a person whose very core is so devoid of truth that the term itself has no meaning.
For example, he will look you right in the eye and tell you, “I am not going to walk down the street naked, I have never walked down the street naked, and I would never walk down the street naked.” But there are eye-witness accounts and video of him doing just that. And, indeed, he does it again not long after your conversation.
His personal work history is a matter of record but he consistently denies some of it. “I worked at McDonald’s only up until the year before last,” he tells you earnestly, despite records showing he worked there until last week.
He claims to know the law in many areas. It can get embarrassing to hear some of his strange assertions, such as when he states “There is no penalty for littering in this country.” But he always makes his points with absolute confidence and conviction.
Details Are a Troublesome Thing
“Telephone poles are actually animals,” he tells you with a condescending smile, almost sad that he must take a second to enlighten all of us who are so ignorant. He even shakes his head in amazement at our stupidity, all the while speaking in that oh-so-gentle manner that some adults use when addressing a nine-year-old.
He repeatedly lies about other people: “Bobby wants the governor to send free puppies to everyone with a driver’s license. This is an outrageous waste of taxpayer dollars.” He delivers these lines with great vigor. He is confident of the validity of his viewpoint despite all evidence to the contrary. Things like facts do not seem to affect him.
On the other hand, he is quite fond of taking a group of facts, chopping out some of the salient points, and then stating what’s left as if it was still real. “You want to remove the tread from the tires of old people’s cars,” he says, acting like you should be ashamed of yourself.” He does this despite being shown that the point of the tire talk was a free tire inspection offer at a local auto parts store. Ten minutes later, he was seen attempting to slash the tires of every auto parked on nearby streets.
Basic math often seems beyond him. “I will set aside eleventy zillion dollars for my future,” he tells you with a straight face, “and you can share in the same plan.” When told his numbers don’t add up, he smiles and says, “Sure they do.”
What Planet Are You From?
Repeated personal contradictions are a matter of course with this individual. “I have always been consistent,” he says, yet his only dependable trait is prevarication. “You should never just wish for something” he’ll say one minute and then turn around and aver “All we can do is wish for a resolution to that problem.” On the one hand, he feels that “We should travel to several places in the world” while just as often recommending that “We must never budge from our policy of not ever traveling.”
“I love animals,” he tells you while laughing off accounts of his cruelty to animals. “I love my fellow man,” he states with a grin, despite witnesses to his personal attack on someone who was being held down by several of his friends.
He is a member of a cult. “It’s a religion,” he tells you, just shrugging off the group’s interest in intruding on other people’s lives, from simple things like annoying them in their homes to the shocking practice of desecrating the dead.
In every public appearance, this man makes strong, assertive, reasonable-sounding statements that contradict his previous strong, assertive, reasonable-sounding statements. It is a veritable seminar of subterfuge. A deluge of deceit. A passel of perjury. A portfolio of prevarication. His entire life appears to be forged from fabrication, falsehood, fiction, and fibs. And he is trapped in a stinking morass of mendacity and myth.
Just the Facts, Ma’am
It will be instructive if you re-read the above paragraphs while making the following substitutions:
For “I am not going to walk down the street naked,” just insert any of Mitt’s statements about raising taxes on the middle-class.
For “I worked at McDonald’s only up until the year before last,” just insert Mitt’s assertion that he left Bain Capital in 1999 instead of 2002.
For “There is no penalty for littering in this country,” just insert Mitt’s claim that companies do not receive financial breaks for going outside the USA for workers, locations, or repositories of funds.
For “Telephone poles are actually animals,” just insert Mitt’s statement that corporations are people.
For “Bobby wants the governor to send free puppies to everyone with a driver’s license,” just insert Mitt’s comments and ads containing the lie about the work requirement for welfare.
For “You want to remove the tread from the tires of old people’s cars,” just insert Mitt’s amazing lie about the Obama administration’s cost-saving of $716B in Medicare. Or his statements both for and against paying for more teachers. Or his statements both for and against women’s rights. Or his statements both for and against Obamacare (or, since we’re being factual here, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).
For “I will set aside eleventy zillion dollars for my future,” just insert any of Mitt’s statements about Medicad, his offshore tax havens, his incredibly large retirement account, or the destruction of companies taken over by Bain Capital. Or any of his statements about 47% of America. Or his thirteen percent tax rate.
For “I have always been consistent,” simply insert any of Mitt’s views on foreign policy, starting with his support for wars he and his sons have successfully dodged and including his traitorous comments on deadly Middle East flare-ups.
For “I love animals” and “I love my fellow man,” insert the accounts of Mitt’s dog torture, or his harassment of fellow citizens while impersonating a law enforcement officer, or his personal assault of a schoolmate, or his statements about profiting from the financial rape of workers at company after company under his leadership.
For “It’s a religion,” just look at the beliefs of Mitt’s “church,” from Planet Kolob to the magical properties of their undergarments to the retroactive baptism of dead people, including victims of Nazi persecution.
In Short
The painful, frightening, and inescapable conclusion is that this year’s GOP candidate for the POTUS is clinically insane.
Copr. © 2012 by John Scott G and originally published on eNewsChannels.com – all commercial and reprint rights reserved.
