Romney: 47% of Americans are losers, don't care about 'em

[Martinus]

As for the atheist view of Obama, at worst he attends church for political reasons (reflects badly on his character), at middle he's a cultural christian who hasn't given the issue much thought (reflects badly on his intellectual curiosity), at best he's a non-confessing in the closet atheist (reflects well on his political judgement, but badly on character and courage). His professed religion is problematic, but then his politics are 100% consistent with secular humanist values, so we forgive him for lying about it.

  You Euros and your hang-ups on religion.

It's you, not us, who have hangs ups on religion. Poland, the most catholic country in the world, had an openly atheistic president and a couple of prime ministers.

In one hundred years, when your first black quadruplegic lesbian President crawls onto the podium, she is going to claim that God made her in His image, because an atheist could never get elected there.

[Martinus]

As for the atheist view of Obama, at worst he attends church for political reasons (reflects badly on his character), at middle he's a cultural christian who hasn't given the issue much thought (reflects badly on his intellectual curiosity), at best he's a non-confessing in the closet atheist (reflects well on his political judgement, but badly on character and courage). His professed religion is problematic, but then his politics are 100% consistent with secular humanist values, so we forgive him for lying about it.

How would "secular humaist values" differ from Liberal Protestant values?

No matter how you slice it, any religious worldview suffers from the GIGO fallacy. If you feed false data into the system, you are bound to eventually get false results, even if you are lucky and get most of them right.

[Martinus]

Jesus H Chocolate Covered Christ on a stick, people.

Sometimes people go to church, not out of "intellectual curiosity" or "nominal religiosity" or any of the other bullshit reasons you fucking noodleheads are overthinking, as fucking usual.

Sometimes people go to church because it's a goddamned community thing, it's usually the largest collective activity in the community particularly in the urban environment, and they have some wicked fried chicken dinners afterwards.  Fuck.

It could be the reason why Europeans dislike religion - we never get dinners in church.

[Razgovory]

As for the atheist view of Obama, at worst he attends church for political reasons (reflects badly on his character), at middle he's a cultural christian who hasn't given the issue much thought (reflects badly on his intellectual curiosity), at best he's a non-confessing in the closet atheist (reflects well on his political judgement, but badly on character and courage). His professed religion is problematic, but then his politics are 100% consistent with secular humanist values, so we forgive him for lying about it.

  You Euros and your hang-ups on religion.

It's you, not us, who have hangs ups on religion. Poland, the most catholic country in the world, had an openly atheistic president and a couple of prime ministers.

In one hundred years, when your first black quadruplegic lesbian President crawls onto the podium, she is going to claim that God made her in His image, because an atheist could never get elected there.

I would think that most Catholic country in Europe would be the Vatican.  Poland on the other hand, was ruled by clique of brutal atheists for 40 years.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

As for the atheist view of Obama, at worst he attends church for political reasons (reflects badly on his character), at middle he's a cultural christian who hasn't given the issue much thought (reflects badly on his intellectual curiosity), at best he's a non-confessing in the closet atheist (reflects well on his political judgement, but badly on character and courage). His professed religion is problematic, but then his politics are 100% consistent with secular humanist values, so we forgive him for lying about it.

  You Euros and your hang-ups on religion.

It's you, not us, who have hangs ups on religion. Poland, the most catholic country in the world, had an openly atheistic president and a couple of prime ministers.

In one hundred years, when your first black quadruplegic lesbian President crawls onto the podium, she is going to claim that God made her in His image, because an atheist could never get elected there.

I would think that most Catholic country in Europe would be the Vatican.

you'd be surprised.

[MadImmortalMan]

Who the hell is running the Romney campaign??

Seedy. He's running the whole thing as a double agent. Isn't it obvious?

[Phillip V]

Saw the interview and speech he gave tonight.

Part of me feels sorry for him. I think he's motivated in large part by memory of his father, and this has probably been his goal since Nixon & Co went balls-deep in to George Romney's ass over Vietnam.  He seemed dazed, disappointed. 

Dreams From His Father?

[Viking]

Cause it's fucking Viking and he can't respect anyone's intellect unless they are an atheist.

Well, at least there is something I agree with Ayn Rand about.

[Sheilbh]

I'm not much for math or statistical analysis, but I sincerely doubt that 47% of Americans qualify for that statement and all he implies.

Yi was throwing around that 47% thing last week.  Where does it come from?  Is it 47% of people who file taxes or it 47% of the population?  I'd hardly expect 5 year old kid to pay much in taxation.

It's 47% of tax filers I think. The majority are on low incomes and do pay payroll taxes but don't pay income tax, especially with tax credits like the EITC or child tax credit. The remainder are mostly elderly. The problem for me is, I think, the seeming moral judgement (of mainly low income workers) of people not taking personal responsibility.

Facts aside I think it's a dreadful comment for his campaign.

On Obama's faith, he laces his speeches with Biblical reference. I think he's a sincere, liberal Northern Protestant, which is a bit like being a devout CofEer. It doesn't easily look like faith from the outside.

[Gups]

The Dem's Southern Strategy revealed at last

[CountDeMoney]

Facts aside I think it's a dreadful comment for his campaign.

It just makes it dreadfuller, that's all.

However, he did two things last night that didn't help:
1) Calling a press conference at 10pm, which never looks good, regardless of how bad you've fucked up, and
2) Not acting like you've fucked up during it, but digging in with the "entitlement society".

Whether through hubris, incompetence or incompetent hubris at every turn, this guy keeps blowing a winnable election.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I have to call immediate bullshit on that non-payer map. Having owned property in West Virginia for years and hunting there every season there is simply no possibility that they aren't one of the highest of the non-payer States. West Virginia is the second poorest state in the country only ahead of Mississippi.

As for religion, atheists like to believe smart people could only be religious as a fraud, but that just isn't the case. Note who President Obama is married to, a traditionalist black woman. Most likely she's very genuine and big on the religion stuff, which is very big in the black community. It's entirely possible he started to attend Church without being sincere, but from all evidence we have I have no reason to doubt he's pretty sincere about it now.

Romney is a Mormon, and has been for his entire life. There is no possible reason, if you're a secret atheist, your "passing" religion would be Mormonism. If you're a secret atheist you pick a moderate Protestant sect like Episcopalian, Methodist or etc or go Catholic, but you don't pick one of the least understood, most ridiculed, and downright weirdest of the American Christian sects. Especially not if your reason for being a secret atheist is you want to run for political office.

[Martinus]

Romney is a Mormon, and has been for his entire life. There is no possible reason, if you're a secret atheist, your "passing" religion would be Mormonism. If you're a secret atheist you pick a moderate Protestant sect like Episcopalian, Methodist or etc or go Catholic, but you don't pick one of the least understood, most ridiculed, and downright weirdest of the American Christian sects. Especially not if your reason for being a secret atheist is you want to run for political office.

I call bullshit on this reasoning. As you said yourself, he did not pick mormonism, he was raised in it. I don't think people who are atheists but pretend to be religious convert for show - this would require learning all the new tenets that you already believe to be bullshit - it's much easier to stay in your "birth religion" and just lapse secretly.

[alfred russel]

Curiously enough, Intrade market didn't move on the news.  I guess even crappy predictive markets know enough to price in the possibility of a major Romney gaffe.

Or maybe it wasn't a major gaffe. The 47% number could be accurate, but do you think those 47% of people would realize Romney was talking about them? This is just an updated version of bitching about welfare queens, with some hysteria regarding America approaching a tipping point.

[Legbiter]

Whoops. Guess that's it for Romney.