Mitt Romney said:

‘There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what,’ he said, over sounds of waiters pouring drinks and clearing plates. ‘All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.’

The Bible that Mitt claims to believe in has this to say, as explained in the Orthodox Jewish website “torah.org”

According to Jewish tradition, there are 4 types of people:

One who says, ‘What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is yours’ is of average character, and some say, this is the character of Sodom. [One who says] ‘What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine’ is unlearned (lit., [of] the people of the land). [One who says] ‘What’s mine is yours and what’s yours is yours’ is pious. [One who says] ‘What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is mine’ is wicked.”

See torah.org

torah.org offers this explanation

And the lesson for us is that there is simply no such thing as a person who focuses wholly on himself yet is still an “average” individual. If we accept that all humans are created in G-d’s image, we will naturally feel obligated to help them and will share in their suffering. We might even see our wealth and talents as a responsibility: as gifts from G-d to be used in the manner He wishes. Once humans are in G-d’s image, they are all equal, significant, and deserving of our love and respect.

If, however, a person feels others’ problems are not his problems, his life will be one of selfishness and unlimited cruelty. He will sleep easily at night, blissfully unconcerned with the suffering of others; in fact he will go to any extreme to see that their plight does not interfere with his personal comfort and equanimity. On a national level, it is difficult for the isolationist mentality of “It’s not our problem” to avoid spilling over into the national character of a country’s citizens. (Such an attitude could not be more UN-Jewish, incidentally — even if no one has the means of saving the entire world.) On a personal level, someone who thinks exclusively about himself has not reached the maturity of character required for friendship, marriage, or any type of serious relationship. Such a person will begin to see others as objects — pawns to be used for his own selfish ends, then to be discarded when no longer useful.

[…]

The sad but realistic conclusion is that one cannot “basically be a good person” if his raison d’etre is selfish. If we’re really generous, neither hurting nor helping others can be considered “average.” But average people — if they do nothing to elevate their souls — will not long remain so. You either grow or you fortify yourself in your mediocrity — going to every cruel excess to remain oblivious to the rest of mankind. Without a sense of love of and appreciation for others, refusal to help will turn into a lack of concern and eventually an icy callousness towards the needs and suffering of others. Goodness cannot be defined in a vacuum. If you care about and sympathize with others, you are a human being yourself. If you are a person who at best chooses not to hurt others (because — well, otherwise they might hurt you), your life is one of survival and self-preservation — and ultimately of pathetic emptiness.

This, in fact, was the sin of Sodom!

There’s a fascinating passage in the Talmud (Sanhedrin 109a) which describes the mentality of the Sodomites. (In fact we see parallels to it in some of the strict immigration laws of more recent times.) What brought the Sodomites to such repugnant evil? The answer in a word was that they saw the lushness of their own land and desired it for themselves. And so, they banned all travelers and visitors. (Today, after its destruction (Genesis 19), it is the area of the Dead Sea, one of the most barren and uninhabitable places in the world.) Why share our richness with anyone else? As soon as you “make it,” the shnorers (more respectfully: “fund-raisers”) line up at your door. Who needs it? Not of course that they intended anyone else *harm* to be sure. They just wanted the comfortable life for themselves. “No Solicitors” figured prominently at the gates of their city (a rather common sight nowadays — although most of the time the newly-arrived Israeli “solicitor” has no idea what the word means…). We wish you all the best, but keep your suffering and misery to yourselves!

Step two, continues the Talmud, the Sodomites enacted all sorts of cruel as well as absurd laws banning hospitality and charity, and doing away with all semblance of fair play. No one had any form of obligation towards others or was required to pay for any infraction. The Talmud lists such laws as that if one would hit his fellow, his fellow would owe *him* medical expenses for the service of blood-letting. Other choice rulings were that if A would cut off the ear of B’s donkey, A would keep the donkey till it grew back, or if A would injure B’s wife causing her to miscarry, A would take her till she again became pregnant.

The people of Sodom likewise decreed punishments for acts of charity. The Talmud records that when a young girl gave some bread to a poor person, they punished her by smearing her flesh with honey and tying her up on a roof, leaving her to die a horrific death at the hands of the bees. (The Sages state that it was this final breach of humanity which sealed the fate of these G-dless and despicable people.)

How did simple selfishness transform itself into such vicious as well as asinine cruelty? Simple — it was not a transformation at all. They simply lived out their own selfishness to its logical conclusion. They didn’t want to share, they wanted to live for themselves — and so naturally they went to any and all extremes to free themselves of the burdens of hospitality and humanity — as well as all moral accountability.

See Torah.Org for more explanation.

Shanah Tovah