C’mon, you knew this wouldn’t end well.

Mitt The Awkward Weirdo (I prefer this [...]]]> Mitt Romney, wh0 should really just stay the Hell away from talking to, at, or about brown people (especially the small ones – they clearly make him super uncomfortable), is at it again. This time, in Israel.

C’mon, you knew this wouldn’t end well.

Mitt The Awkward Weirdo (I prefer this to “Mitt the Twit” because I find it to be more accurate) told a group attending a breakfast fundraiser in Jerusalem that he believes culture to be a defining factor in determining prosperity. From the New York Times:

“As you come here and you see the G.D.P. per capita, for instance, in Israel which is about $21,000, and compare that with the G.D.P. per capita just across the areas managed by the Palestinian Authority, which is more like $10,000 per capita, you notice such a dramatically stark difference in economic vitality,” he said.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Saeb Erekat, a senior aide to President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, called Mr. Romney’s remarks “racist.”

I don’t know about racist, but he’s kinda fucking stupid if he actually thinks that the difference in GDP per capita between Israel and the occupied territories is due to Jewish culture rather than, you know, the total upheaval and displacement of the two peoples and resettlement that occurred throughout the second half of the twentieth century.

What’s worse is that he name-checked Jared Diamond and his book Guns, Germs, and Steel in the speech. He claims it “informed” his opinion on how nations acquire and maintain wealth and power, alongside David Landes’s The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, the latter of which argues (in a self-professed and boastfully Eurocentric manner) that the determinant factors are all cultural. I find it hard to reconcile how Romney could say Diamond’s work influenced his thinking considering the statement he made about culture defining economic potential. That’s an argument straight out of Landes, which specifically contradicts all other arguments and considerations, including the various factors laid out in Diamond’s book.

But I’m probably giving this too much thought.

Anyway, it reminded me of this old skit from Mr. Show, which is right on the money with its criticism of the idea that more money means someone/thing is better than someone/thing else. It’s complete bullshit and predominantly the worldview of idiots and sociopaths.

For what it’s worth, he did much better the first time he ran for President: