Thursday, November 15, 2007
Mitt's wild years
Here's a frightening account of how presidential candidate Mitt Romney spent his later adolescence years. I'll sum it up for you.
In 1966, this privileged teenager dropped out of Stanford & was posted to France as a Mormon missionary. In Paris & Bordeaux, Romney & his fellow LDS cultists did what Mormon missionaries do: They knocked on doors 12 hours-a-day. Their freedom of movement was severely restricted, conformity enforced, watching TV & reading newspapers discouraged, & the members kept each other under close observation. His only rebellion consisted of sneaking off to the movies, probably to watch Jerry Lewis with subtitles. Since Romney's interactions with French people required him to see them only as potential converts, he didn't learn much about them as real human beings. His typical encounter ended with a door slammed in his face, sometimes with an angry comment about Vietnam. Romney couldn't drink French wine. The spartan existence ruled out sampling the cuisine. Sampling female université students was out of the question. Centuries of incomparable French culture were ignored (Mormon culture is so banal it hardly qualifies as middlebrow). He may not even have enjoyed the scenery. He certainly didn't waste his time loitering in pleasant sidewalk cafes over espresso & discussions of philosophy, poetry, & love. When the general strike of '68 broke out, he ignorantly dismissed the years of political ferment & de Gaullean arrogance that had caused the upheaval. He returned to America more narrow-minded than when he had left, transferred to Brigham Young University, became a campus swell in a natty blue blazer (BYU existed in 1950s timewarp), then got married shortly before or after he drew a safe Selective Service lottery number. Our next president?
A comparable cultural experience came to mind; Dave Thomas, the affable but proudly dull founder of Wendy's served a year in Germany with the Army & rarely left the base, spending his spare time in the mess hall kitchen experimenting with mass production hamburgers. But Dave at least gave the world Wendy's Value Menu.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
In 1966, this privileged teenager dropped out of Stanford & was posted to France as a Mormon missionary. In Paris & Bordeaux, Romney & his fellow LDS cultists did what Mormon missionaries do: They knocked on doors 12 hours-a-day. Their freedom of movement was severely restricted, conformity enforced, watching TV & reading newspapers discouraged, & the members kept each other under close observation. His only rebellion consisted of sneaking off to the movies, probably to watch Jerry Lewis with subtitles. Since Romney's interactions with French people required him to see them only as potential converts, he didn't learn much about them as real human beings. His typical encounter ended with a door slammed in his face, sometimes with an angry comment about Vietnam. Romney couldn't drink French wine. The spartan existence ruled out sampling the cuisine. Sampling female université students was out of the question. Centuries of incomparable French culture were ignored (Mormon culture is so banal it hardly qualifies as middlebrow). He may not even have enjoyed the scenery. He certainly didn't waste his time loitering in pleasant sidewalk cafes over espresso & discussions of philosophy, poetry, & love. When the general strike of '68 broke out, he ignorantly dismissed the years of political ferment & de Gaullean arrogance that had caused the upheaval. He returned to America more narrow-minded than when he had left, transferred to Brigham Young University, became a campus swell in a natty blue blazer (BYU existed in 1950s timewarp), then got married shortly before or after he drew a safe Selective Service lottery number. Our next president?
A comparable cultural experience came to mind; Dave Thomas, the affable but proudly dull founder of Wendy's served a year in Germany with the Army & rarely left the base, spending his spare time in the mess hall kitchen experimenting with mass production hamburgers. But Dave at least gave the world Wendy's Value Menu.
Labels: religion, THE election
