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This behavior is, without a doubt, reprehensible. But making the case that since he did it then, he’d do the same now – or even have similar tendencies – is simply ridiculous. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Romney fan. But fair is fair.

If you want to see how the man’s character has developed, you need to look at more than just his high school years. He protested in favor of the Vietnam War, then got himself moved to France to avoid the draft. His time at Bain Capital, where he made his money buying, then dismantling businesses, pocketing the profits while moving jobs offshore and putting Americans out of work. Or his battle with and elimination of a Massachusetts state-sponsored group that worked to educate against gay bullying. You can look at his current focus at cutting the taxes on the wealthy, while increasing them on the poor. There are plenty of things you can point to that show where his thinking has “evolved”. You don’t need to extrapolate it from his behavior as a teen.

But there is a pattern here. And in that sense, there is some value to knowing about this incident. Romney has always been couched in privilege. And from that privilege comes arrogance and a sense of entitlement. It comes with the perception that those who are different must be made to toe the line. And that getting ahead, getting your own way, takes precedence over the welfare of others. In other words, he acts like a bully.

Today, that bullying is in the form of money. He will spend as much as it takes to get himself the nomination, and if he can, the Presidency. It doesn’t matter how awful things in his past might be, nor what the consequence to the average person is. This isn’t about class warfare, because Romney doesn’t recognize a different class. You can tell by his speeches, his statements – he truly believes that he is average, that everyone has the same opportunities he did. So he believes he is doing the best. And anyone who doesn’t have what he has is just lazy, doesn’t need help. Remember his statement about not being worried about the very poor? He thinks they’re ok. He thinks the fact that they have fallen into a safety net shows that the system works. Never mind the fact that they need a safety net is a prime example that the system isn’t working, and that he is supportive of removing that safety net and letting them fall. Same attitude as “Let Detroit Fail”. If it doesn’t affect him or his cronies directly, he really doesn’t care. But take away a penny of their income in taxes, and they scream of lost freedoms and war on the rich.

It’s the entitlement of bullies. They’ll bash everything around them if they are allowed. It gives them a sense of power, a sense of control. It’s the GOP brand. Case in point – today’s vote in the House on a Republican measure to restore military funding that they gave up in the debt ceiling deal. You’ll remember that in the deal, Republicans agreed that if a debt reduction deal was not passed by November of last year, there would be automatic cuts to the military. They agreed to that because Democrats agreed to cuts on the programs they favor as well.

Now, however, Republicans want to renege. They want to turn back the clock and not cut a penny out of the military. Instead, they want to make further cuts to social programs, like school lunches, health care subsidies, child tax credits and food stamps, on top of the cuts already agreed to. Typical bully behavior. Make the deal, then try to bash your way out of it when it starts going south.

Of course, this deal has no chance in the Senate, and even if it did, it would not get past the President. They made a deal, and they’re going to have to stick to it. But the reality is, they don’t care. How could they? Politically, in an election year, do you really want to pit the poor, children and the elderly against military spending? Do you want to remind folks that you made a deal, in an effort to reduce spending, and that you don’t want to keep your word?

Bullies don’t care.

Again, this isn’t about class warfare. This is about entitlement. They have the money, they want to keep it, and they don’t intend to give any of it away. So they’ll beat up whoever they have to toward that end.

So, no, Romney’s high school activities aren’t indicative of what he would do today. But they are a piece of a puzzle that shows that his sense of entitlement, his willingness to bully those he doesn’t agree with, has a clear progression from then until now.

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And then I figured it out.

It’s not about “personal freedoms”. It’s about “personal” freedoms. What’s the difference? Everything, actually.

Most people, when they talk about “personal freedoms”, are talking about those rights that should be afforded and protected for individuals. We might actually call them “civil freedoms”. Those things to which we believe every man woman and child should generally be granted,, and protected from usurpation. Makes sense, right?

But that’s not how today’s GOP with their inexorable move to the right mean it. No, they believe in “personal” freedoms. As in, whatever works for them personally is ok, and anything that doesn’t is not ok. When you look at their positions in this context, it all starts to make sense.

Why, for example, do they want to control a woman’s right to decide what she can and cannot do with her body? In this new context, it’s very simple – the control. With that control, they can do whatever they want, and a woman must accede to it. A concrete example is that of Newt Gingrich. Conservatives rail about family values, want to legislate it. So why no real problem with Newt? Because, it’s his “personal” freedom to blow through marriages. He was adulterous and unfaithful. And yet, when he chose to go after Clinton in the 90′s, it was somehow a huge problem. Again, Newt could do that because it was his “personal” freedom to be unfaithful. And in the mind of these folks on the right, whatever you choose to do for yourself is fine, but if someone else does it, bring on the brimstone and hellfire.

Look at Mitt Romney. I believe he genuinely has no idea how disconnected he is with the average American. Why? Because he’s acted on his “personal” freedoms. He likes the idea of being able to “fire” people, because doing so is to his benefit. Cutting taxes on the wealthy while increasing them on the poor is fine, because it works for him “personally”.

Perhaps that’s the easiest way to translate the right’s obsession with “personal” freedoms. Just think of it as “it’s all about me”. If it helps them, “personally”, then it’s ok. To them, anything that helps others is pointless, unless they garner some benefit to themselves. Altruism does not fit into their views. They don’t see the point, because it doesn’t benefit them. Once you have that concept in your mind, it’s much easier to understand how they think. It’s also much easier to understand why they get supporters.

On the surface, everyone says they want to help others. But more and more, people pay lip service to this idea. They’re willing to help, unless it requires some sacrifice on their part. To be sure, the economy and hardships folks have faced have hardened them and forced them to think about their own situations first. But there has also been a steady move toward the idea that one takes care of themselves first. And as that moves farther, you add “and to Hell with everyone else.”

I think we saw this movement really start in the 80′s. I distinctly remember the movie “Wall St.”, and abhorring the Gordon Gekko character. His mantra “Greed is good; greed works” was particularly offensive to me. But the sad reality is, the second half of that mantra is correct: Greed does work. And I know far too many who to this day still see Gekko not as the villian, but a hero, a role model.

Gekko was right in that greed motivates. And once you get something, you naturally want more. And how dare anyone deny it to you. But we can’t all be Wall St. tycoons. That’s where the simplicity of greed meets the American Dream. Everyone wants to believe they can  be the tycoon, the multimillionaire. So, instead of acting on their best interests in reality, they fall prey to the dreams and fantasies of the rich. They’ll vote against their own interests to preserve the chance that someday, maybe, they might be there too.

“Personal” freedoms that they will never see.

And all the while, those with the money and the power will feed them that glimmer of hope, like the slot machine that pays out just enough to keep you pulling the handle. The odds are stacked against you the minute you walk into the casino, but you still drop the cash into the machine. And in the same way, the folks on the right keep feeding those dreams, while taking their livelihood. They’ll let you dream of keeping those taxes if you make it rich, while shipping your jobs overseas. They’ll give what you do pay to oil companies, then write the laws so those companies pay a fraction of what they should. Because it’s all in their personal interest. If they can get you to vote in their interests instead of yours, they win, and they won’t shed a tear for you.

Everything the right does is designed to help themselves, not anyone else. And the damnedest thing is, they tell people right up front – they want to be “personally free”, they want “personal responsibility”. All this time, you thought they were trying to tell you that you were irresponsible. What they were really telling you is that they don’t give a damn about you, they’re being “personally responsible” for themselves and no one else.

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And Republicans see this. It’s why they’ve never liked Romney to begin with. But, they’re stuck with him, so now they’re getting desperate, looking for something, anything they can use to try to put a negative spin on the President.

The latest act of desperation? Trying to connect the Obama campaign’s use of the word “Forward” to Marxists and Nazis. Really.

That’s how ridiculous this whole thing has gotten. We can’t use common every day words, because they might have some sinister, nefarious meaning. Never mind that the Wisconsin state motto is “Forward” – the state must have been founded by those evil Marxists, right? And that bastion of Marxism, George W. Bush when he proposed “the way forward” in Iraq in 2006.

This is how ridiculous the conversation is getting. Anything is a “dog whistle” or has some dark, evil purpose. But I think there’s a very valid reason why the Republicans and the right think that way – it’s how they operate. It’s part of their make-up. While the average American thinks of words like “forward” as simply statements of direction of movement, the folks on the right have to find another meaning. It’s because when they use words like “Patriot”, they don’t mean someone who loves their country and fights for it. They mean someone who thinks just like them. When they say “food stamp President”, what they mean is “lazy, dark-skinned thief stealing my money”. Of late, they’ve been even less transparent, calling the President a “tar baby” and “boy”. There’s no shortage of phrases and messages that the right uses to get their base fired up. They are always looking for that “secret” meaning because they’re always including a secret meaning.

And because of that, they will always look for messages that don’t exist. Messages that no ordinary American will ever see. And of course, when we point that out, the argument is that we “just don’t understand”, or we’re blind, or don’t love our country.

You want to raise the level of discourse in this country? Try saying what you mean, and not looking for or using those “dog whistles”. Chances of that happening? Next to zero. And as we get closer to the election, and as Romney continues to bury himself in his own inanity, watch for the desperate to become even more ridiculous.

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