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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.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Running against whom?

There are a lot of campaign signs in my neighborhood for Mike Phillips, the Republican candidate for Congress in my district. and all of them seem to couple his name and the office he's seeking with one other thing: Replace Pepco. Now, Pepco, for those who do not live near here, is the local electric company, and they have proved rather incompetent in handling some of the power outages resulting from recent storms, so a lot of people might be swayed to vote for anyone running against Pepco like this, but what on earth does a U. S. Congressman have to do with Pepco's franchise to provide electric power in this area? I might see "Replace Pepco" as a vaild campaign point for a candidate for County Council or County Executive, or possibly even for the State legislature, but it seems Phillips is running against the wrong opponent. Certainly, I'm sure that he realizes that Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic incumbent Congressman, is still so popular that he'll be hard to beat. But I cannot see how he can tie Van Hollen to Pepco's shortcomings. He could run against Nancy Pelosi's leadership, which Van Hollen certainly abets (in fact, he's a trusted member of her team, as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee). Or he could point to things that Van Hollen has actually done to hurt the district. But this seems a strange campaign tactic.

Now, Phillips will get my vote in November. He was not my choice in the primary, but once the primary is over, we need to get behind the winner — especially to try (though I'm afraid it's an impossible task) to defeat someone as important to the Pelosi/Reid/Obama team as Chris Van Hollen. But I think it's a crazy way to run a campaign.

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