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CreekDog

(46,192 posts)
Fri Aug 31, 2012, 05:18 AM Aug 2012

Mitt said that growing up, "To be an American was to assume that all things were possible."

No it wasn't.

The main issue I've had with Republicans all these years is the same one I have with his statement.

They talk about the 1950's like it was utopia, like we should go back.

Because the worldview they take for granted is that those who have opportunity deserve it and those who don't aren't worth a mention.

When he was growing up, a Barack Obama couldn't have been president, he couldn't have even eaten lunch with a white person in many states, couldn't have married a white woman, couldn't have been a full man in Romney's church, he maybe even couldn't have been born because his parents would have been forbidden from marrying.

And that's only one form of discrimination that was rampant, the others are well known too, against women, against the disabled, against gays, against Native Americans, etc.

But the Republicans just gloss all over that.

Anything was possible for many Americans in the 1950's, it was not for many more. But he's of such privilege, and seemingly unaware of this fact because of it. Which is sad, because inherited wealth need not get in the way of empathy and understanding as JFK, RFK and FDR showed.

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