Clip and Send

A few days ago, the Dems released this chilling thing:

“Government is the only thing we all belong to” is a sentiment that Mussolini thoroughly approved of. “Everything within the state; nothing outside the state; nothing against the state” said he. That is a hell of a long way from the classical American ideal (perfectly reflective of Catholic teaching) articulated in Kennedy’s inaugural when he said that “the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe—the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state, but from the hand of God.” The Dem party tried very hard to eliminate all mention of God in it’s platform–and its leader, a jealous god, is trying very hard to crush the religious liberty and freedom of conscience and make the Church a lapdog of the State.

Now conservatives get all this and regard with horror the proposition that we “belong to” the government. They get (at least while Obama is in office) that the state exists to guard the dignity of the human person and that state official work for us, not we for state officials.

But when it comes to the Home Team, conservatives generally believe about their party what Dems believe about the State: that we citizens belong to and serve the Party rather than the Party existing to serve us.

Here is reality: Romney is a manipulative dishonest cynic

–who lies that he was a prolife governor while the Youtubes repeatedly proclaiming his fealty to the abortion regime are there for anyone to see;
–who sends clear messages through surrogates that he does not care about gay “marriage”;
–who makes very clear he will make no efforts to do anything serious about abortion;
–who (in a recent interview with Raymond Arroyo, the friendliest of interviewers) cannot bring himself to say that he will overturn the HHS mandate;
–who ordered Catholic hospitals to prescribe contraceptives

An election campaign is, in effect, a job interview and you are the employer, not the subservient one. The candidate is the applicant and you, as employers, have the right and the obligation to tell–nay, demand–that your potential employee have the talent, brains, and willingness to do what you want. You’d never hire some jerk who was planning to dip into the till, or shoplift, or use your business as a warehouse for his heroin trade. So why, when a candidate is lying through his teeth to you, do you give him the benefit of the doubt when he is a proven liar?

“Because we have to vote for the lesser of two evils!” Prescinding from the fact that this is utterly false and you can vote for whoever you like, note how quickly we revert to language which assumes that the candidate is running the show and not you. We’re not at Election Day. You don’t have to vote today. What you and I have to do–today–is tell this cynical, manipulative, unprincipled man whose moral center is made of tofu that he had better knuckle under and do exactly what we, his employers, demand he do or we will make life hell for him and his party. We have to tell him that if he complies with what we want, we will reward him and his party. We have to, in short, remember that they work for us, not we for them.

This concept is, surprisingly, startling to many of my readers, and several have, over the past couple months written to ask how to do that. My answer: clip and save the following, then send it to the Romney campaign (if you are an Obama supporter, you can use it as a template, but include a different list of betrayals (indefinite detention, secret murder lists, assaults on religious liberty, contempt for the 30% of Dems who oppose abortion, etc) and your corresponding threats of reprisals against your Party).

Dear Mr. Romney:

I am a conservative who believes that the purpose of conservatism is to conserve things which are good in American and Western culture. Among these things are life and liberty.

At present, I have grave concerns that you have any serious intention of conserving these things and so I have no good reason for voting for you. Merely saying “I’m not Obama” is not enough to win my vote. Why? Because I have zero confidence that you are going to, in any significant way, overturn much of his agenda and plenty of concern that, in addition to it, you will lard on tax cuts for yourself and your class and more wars for our troops to fight.

Let me be clear. You have lied that you governed as a prolife governor. Sorry, but I have seen the multiple Youtube videos of you, as governor, proudly proclaiming your devotion to abortion. When you lie to me about your record on something as fundamental as the right to life, I have no reason to trust a word you say.

Both your sister and your wife have made clear that you have no serious interest in abortion. This is a tried and true political strategy for the GOP (just as ask the Bush women). The candidate makes prolife noises, his women say, “He doesn’t really mean it.” The women are right.

You were given a softball question about the HHS mandate recently by Raymond Arroyo of EWTN. You could not bring yourself to say you would overturn it. If you are unwilling to undo the immense damage to religous liberty done by this edict, why should I vote for you? I require from you a loud and often repeated public pledge that you will do this or you can forget my vote.

You have made clear that you don’t care about the integrity of traditional marriage and will do nothing about gay “marriage”. If that does not change with loud and repeated pledges to oppose gay “marriage” you can forget my vote.

You use enthusiastic endorsement of torture (yes, waterboarding is torture and is but one of the criminal methods we used in both torturing and murdering prisoners, several of them documentably innocent) in our War on Terror. Just as I will not vote for a candidate who supports abortion and the crushing of religious liberty and conscience and the legalization of gay “marriage”, so I will not vote for a candidate who supports the use of torture.

Finally, although I was disgusted by your remarks which strongly suggest that half the American people are motivated by welfare parasitism in supporting your opponent. Many of our troops (a body to which neither you nor your sons have ever belonged) are forced to live on welfare and food stamps while defending you back home has you pursue power and wealth and your party leads the charge to cut their pay and benefits still further.

Make a public and frequent renunciation of the grave evils of abortion, the HHS mandate, gay “marriage” and torture and I will consider voting for you. Pledge, loudly, repeatedly and publicly that you will see to it that our brave and self-sacrificial troops receive the pay and benefits they deserve, instead of the contempt you heaped on them when you thought you were only speaking to your rich and smug peers, and I will consider voting for you. Pledge that you will bring them home instead of expanding into still more imperial pre-emptive wars and I will consider rewarding you with my vote.

And be aware that if you make these promises and then break them–if dare to betray my support for you–I will do everything in my power to punish you and your party at the ballot box and financially, and I will do everything I can to mobilize all the other supporters of human life and liberty to do likewise. We do not serve you, Mr. Romney. You serve us. We will not shut up and get in line behind you. We will not be stampeded by “lesser of two evils” rhetoric about how we have to vote for you or Obama will win. Do right and you will be rewarded by your employers, the American people. Do evil, and we will punish you and your party.

We will no longer be played.

Sincerely,

Clip that. Save it. Send it to the Romney campaign via their website here, with your own signature on it (and edit it how you like to document more Romney perfidy and offer more carrots and sticks to Romney).

Start a signature campaign, get thousands of signatures and take out a page in the paper. Send the signatures to the Romney campaign.

Start a Facebook page with that letter or one like it and get a bazillion people to like it. Point the Romney campaign to it.

Update: a reader sez:

This misses the target. Romney is a liar without a conscience or conservative values. If he changes his message to suit the letter, the change means nothing and guarantees nothing.

Rather, conservatives should send this letter to the RNC Chairman, and the chairperson of their State and local GOP parties, to let them know why their “base” is staying home in November. Tell ’em the jig is up, and stop dancing.

I won’t stay home this November. But I agree with exerting maximum pressure on the whole party. Romney, precisely because he has a heart of tofu, might respond if his whole party says, “Don’t screw us over, you unprincipled jerk. My constituents are breathing down my neck!”

Put pressure and heat on these clowns *now*, while they are vulnerable to public pressure, not after they are elected and can say, “So long and thanks for the votes, suckers!”