Imagine not being able to beat Romney in a political debate.

In the first Presidential debate of 2012, Romney humiliated Obama by going as far Left as Obama dared go before a national audience. Consequently, there was no choice for voters regarding ideology; the choice was limited to a question of competency. The choice was between an inept ignoramus with a lousy record as tyrant vs. a knowledgeable, extremely able executive whose lousy record as tyrant still lies in the future.

My readers know what I think of Obama. He’s a kinder, gentler Nazi: not a Hitler, but someone who would have admired Hitler (as he admired Jeremiah Wright) and voted for Hitler and would later have said, “But I did not know.” Obama represents the mindless self-sacrifice at the root of Nazism.

But Romney in the first debate sounded like an aspiring Mussolini. Romney agreed with all of Obama’s collectivist goals of the government providing all kinds of goods and services to society: education, health care, money for the elderly, jobs, etc. Romney merely claimed implicitly that he would be a more efficient tyrant, because he would use the trappings of private industry to achieve those collectivist goals.

To top it off, Romney said the worst thing I can remember a President or Presidential candidate ever saying:

That statement also says that we are endowed by our creator with the right to pursue happiness as we choose. I interpret that as, one, making sure that those people who are less fortunate and can’t care for themselves are cared by — by one another. We’re a nation that believes that we’re all children of the same god and we care for those that have difficulties, those that are elderly and have problems and challenges, those that are disabled. We care for them. And we — we look for discovery and innovation, all these things desired out of the American heart to provide the pursuit of happiness for our citizens.

Romney took the most selfish, individualistic statement of the most individualistic nation in history and turned it into a call for altruism and collectivism.

If I were judging just from this debate, I would say that Romney was to the Left of Obama. Romney wants to spend just as much, loot the wealthy in favor of the ‘middle class’ just as much, regulate industry more cleverly but just as much. It was Obama who sounded like the (relative) fiscal conservative, stating that Romney’s plans to cut tax rates would create even greater budget deficits.

The worst part of the aftermath of the debate is that most commentators on the political Right were jubilant about the outcome. That reaction suggests that Romney as President would neutralize most of the opposition to the government’s anti-capitalist policies.

In truth, Obama is a worse enemy of freedom than he let on in the debate. His speeches to largely black audiences, delivered in pandering dialect reminiscent of Amos ‘n’ Andy (as in his 2007 speech at Hampton University) or raspy-voiced gang members (as in his 2008 speech to SEIU), are more in line with his policies of looting the middle class along with the wealthy.

The best thing I can say about Romney is that he will destroy America perhaps more slowly than Obama will. Romney seems to have some respect for America’s capitalist system and rule of law. Obama seems willing to gut America’s system just for short-term loot for his ‘people’. And there surely are people working with and within the Obama Administration who are deliberately trying to terminate America. But with Romney, when the destruction comes, capitalists will get the blame. What a choice!