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The principles that rule this blog

Principles that will govern my thoughts as I express them here (from my opening statement):


  • Freedom of the individual should be as total as possible, limited only by the fact that nobody should be free to cause physical injury to another, or to deprive another person of his freedoms.
  • Government is necessary primarily to provide those services that private enterprise won't, or won't at a price that people can afford.
  • No person has a right to have his own beliefs on religious, moral, political, or other controversial issues imposed on others who do not share those beliefs.

I believe that Abraham Lincoln expressed it very well:

“The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do, at all, or cannot
so well do, for themselves — in their separate, individual capacities.”


Comments will be invited, and I will attempt to reply to any comments that are offered in a serious and non-abusive manner. However, I will not tolerate abusive or profane language (my reasoning is that this is my blog, and so I can control it; I wouldn't interfere with your using such language on your own!)

If anyone finds an opinion that I express to be contrary to my principles, they are welcome to point this out. I hope that I can make a rational case for my comments. Because, in fact, one label I'll happily accept is rationalist.

Saturday, March 08, 2008

More on the McCain/Obama difference

Yesterday I saw a newspaper with a poll result that indicates that more Democrats are inclined to support McCain than Republicans to support Obama. This shouldn't be too surprising. McCain is more moderate than many Republicans; this is in fact why some of the more extreme Republicans had some trouble supporting him. By contrast, Obama is more extreme than many Democrats, and should repel those Republicans whose vote Obama might want to court.

Yet other polls show Obama winning an election against McCain — at least if the election were to be held right now. This does worry me a bit, but of course Michael Dukakis was leading in the polls at one point in the 1988 election! So, given that November is a long way off, I can't be too worried. I think that as soon as the people realize how radical Obama is, he will suffer the same fate that Dukakis, and George McGovern in 1972, did.

I am married to a woman who is enrolled as a Democrat, though she is more conservative than many Democrats are and closer to me politically than one might think based on party affiliation. She is, at the moment, inclined to vote for McCain — though it appears that she still wants to look at the candidates some more before committing to any one. Yet I cannot see, from anything she's said, much likeliness that she might prefer Obama to McCain in the end — I just wish she'd make up her mind.

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