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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.

Friday, April 06, 2012

Romney-Ryan?

With Mitt Romney at over 600 delegates, nobody but Rick Santorum seriously doubts that he will be the GOP nominee for President this year. And so, people have been discussing a vice-presidential candidate. Since Congressman Paul Ryan strongly backed Romney and campaigned with him in Wisconsin (probably helping him win that state's primary earlier this week), his name has come up a lot in the discussions recently.

There are certainly good reasons for this. Unlike Marco Rubio, Ryan has not been pointedly taking himself out of the running. And unlike Sarah Palin on 2008, Ryan has a lot of experience: seven terms in the Congress, recently becoming essentially the GOP leader on budget issues in the House of Representatives. And Ryan and Romney certainly seem to get along well with each other.

One thing that might by some be taken as a negative is President Obama's repeated wailing about the “Romney-Ryan budget.” But, in a sense, that is not a big problem. President Obama will blame Ryan's budget ideas for every economy-related evil that liberals regularly attribute to conservatives, whether he is Romney's VP candidate or not! So making him the official VP candidate does nothing to focus Obama's criticisms any more sharply on him than otherwise.

Actually, the only real negative point I would have against picking Ryan is that Ryan's strength is the economic area, and so is Romney's — you usually want the VP to be strong in areas where the President is weak (Dick Cheney on foreign/defense policy, where George W. Bush had little experience, for example).

Well, Mitt Romney has a long time to think it over. It will be interesting to see who is his pick.

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