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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.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Now, let's come up with a new health care bill!


It looks as if Scott Brown's election has finally brought the juggernaut to a halt. Speaker Nancy Pelosi has admitted she can't get 218 votes to ram the Senate bill through the House, so any bill is going to need to get through both houses again, and Brown will join the other Republicans in a 59-41 vote, at least. And the message is finally getting to President Obama: He's not going to get a health care bill at all, unless they start from scratch and write a new bill that will get some Republican votes.

So let's proceed. The government (alias "public") option already had to go to get the vote of people like Sen. Joe Lieberman. Let's also scrub the mandate that requires people to buy health insurance or pay a fine. (If you have to make them buy health insurance, there must be something wrong with the pricing, the benefits, or both!) And recognize that the way to control costs is simply to get a handle on malpractice suits and the resulting defensive medicine -- we need meaningful tort reform!

That's a start, anyway; let's get going!

1 comment:

Opinionator said...

I must admit I'm totally out of it on video games, so I can't respond there. But thanks for the compliment.