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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, September 23, 2012

Mitt Romney's taxes

So Mitt Romney's tax return was just made public. And he paid a bit over 14% of his income in Federal tax. This is probably a smaller percentage than Warren Buffett's secretary. But one more thing came out: about 30% of his income was paid out to various charities.

Since money paid to charities goes to some of the same things that Government might otherwise need to support, and certainly is not available to Gov. Romney to help himself personally, it is just as if he'd paid nearly half his income in taxes. Only socialists like President Obama believe that Government is the only way we help each other. As John Podhoretz writes in his column,

Mitt Romney is an extraordinarily, remarkably, astonishingly generous man. A good man. Maybe even a great man.


I agree with Podhoretz's comment.

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