Hold His Feet to the Fire? Please

Republicans have all but acknowledged that Mitt Romney is not a conservative, and that he is no different in substance than Barack Obama, and they have settled. Some, those still in denial, steadfastly hold on to his rhetoric, but most have accepted that their nominee is so zealous for political power that he has no qualms about playing either a progressive or conservative, so long as he wins an election. It seems then, that Romney will change his rhetorical tone just as quickly as he’ll spray tan for Univision on Wednesday, and scrub it all off for 60 Minutes on Sunday.

In a near-textbook case of denial, many on the Right have acknowledged all of this, but insist that voting for him is still the “lesser of two evils,” and what’s really important is “defeating Obama.” Their answer is to simply hold “Mitt Romney’s feet to the fire” once Obama’s gone.

But what is “holding his feet to the fire,” what does it look like (aside from the obvious connotation with torture, repression, and despotism)?

More to the point, how do activists hold a president’s feet to the fire? After all, he has the power to drone us all to death with the stroke of pen, and make us buy stuff, even if we don’t want to. I’ve given this some thought and have concluded that it can’t be done; you’d have to be living in some bizarro-world to think otherwise.

For instance, if they (the Republicans, Tea Partiers, and anyone else planning to vote Empty Suit 2012) think they’re going to hold his feet to the fire, why don’t they hold Obama’s feet to the fire now, what’s stopping them?

Oh, but you see, Obama’s too much of an ideologue, he’s too immersed in his Marxist-Socialist-Leninist ways, he can’t be persuaded to change his ways, they’d reply.

OK.

So what if it turns out that Mitt Romney is equally as deaf to the phone campaigns? What if signing petitions on Facebook doesn’t get his attention? What if it turns out that the same ideology that drives Obama, and Bush before him, will settle into Mitt Romney once he’s given the near-absolute authority that is now vested in the presidency? What then?

I’d rather not find out.

Instead, I’d prefer that all of those Republicans, Tea Partiers, and Empty Suit 2012ers quit taking a shot at Lucy’s football, and do something that mattered for a change.

I’m talking about rejecting the statist quo, as Jeffrey Tucker so nicely puts it, and doing something that works, something that will both send a message to Washington and restore freedom to the individual: Nullification.

Let’s ignore elections and nullify Obamacare, the TSA, the NDAA, raw milk bans, anti-weed laws, and everything else the Feds have done in direct and open violation of the constitution.

Tags: Barack Obama, Election 2012, GOP, Mitt Romney, Nullification, Univision