Freedom Will Light & Heat Your Home, Repair Your Roads and Educate Your Kids

Another guest post by Richie Jay

First a little primer: When you view an ad on the internet, it is being served to you by one of the major ad networks. Those ad networks collect all sorts of information, using things like your IP address and tracking cookies. From the data they collect, they can determine, at the very least, where you are, and often quite a bit more than that.

So, on the Drudge Report (I know, awful, but bear with me) this morning, 2 big Romney ads were being served to me: (1) "Our economy runs on freedom, not government"; and (2) "We have a moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in."

Setting aside for the moment that I'm not a Romney voter, let's focus on the big picture: (1) I live in New Jersey, and they know this; (2) New Jersey just suffered the worst natural disaster in its history, and they know this. (3) They have the power to choose when, where, and which ads they serve, and they know this.

Even our Republican governor knows that the economy doesn't run on "freedom" (whatever that means) when people's homes are under water (and not in the mortgage sense, in the literal, wet sense), roads are impassable, the power is out all over the place, public transit isn't running, schools are closed, and people can't buy gasoline. So that platitude sounds even stupider than it normally would, even to a dyed-in-the-wool Romney supporter.

And that "moral responsibility" business is about the most immoral thing you could possibly say at a time like this. If we were able to fight two wars, because they were deemed necessary, without paying for them, it takes a whole lot of gall to slam the purse shut at a time when we desperately need government spending to run search and rescue operations, rebuild infrastructure, and simply get lives back to normal. This is the absolute worst time to suddenly find fiscal responsibility, coming from a party that had exactly none of it for the past few decades, in spite of their soundbites about it.

My advice to Romney's web team: Serve up some different ads. Maybe even nice ones about helping people in need (heaven forbid!). At least to people in New Jersey. There's literally only a few days left until the election, and you can't find a message that isn't "Screw You, People of New Jersey. Your government shouldn't help you. Because that's not FREEDOM! And LIBERTY! And STUFF!"?

Well, screw you too, Mitt Romney.

P.S. Close the carried interest, capital gains, and Cayman Island tax dodges that you use, amongst others, Mr. Romney, and we could find some cash to spend on these relief efforts, so it wouldn't be, you know, "immoral" for the government to help people.