Powered By Blogger

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, October 06, 2012

Blame John Kerry!

A lot of people are dissecting Wednesday night's Romney-Obama debate, and trying to account for how thoroughly (even in the eyes of Democratic loyalists!) Barack Obama was beaten by Mitt Romney. Pres. Obama has said that when he reached the debate stage:

I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. But it couldn't have been Mitt Romney,… the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn't know anything about that.


Of course, Mitt Romney has never said what Obama claimed he's been saying for the last year. He has favored tax cuts, yes. But the assessment that he “promis[ed] $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy” came from a Democratic think tank, analyzing Romney's proposals in the most unfavorable way.

But what I suspect is that John Kerry, who has been filling in for Romney in Obama's practice debates, has defended the kind of tax proposals that Obama projects as Romney's plan, rather than Romney's actual proposals.

After all, it was John Kerry who said, eight years ago, “I can't believe I'm losing to this idiot.” Kerry considers George W. Bush an “idiot.” The same Bush whose grades at Yale were, if anything, slightly higher than Kerry's. But of course, Kerry is steeped in liberal orthodoxy. Anyone who doesn't see things that way is an “idiot.” It is simply obvious to Kerry that everything liberals say about economic (and other) matters is true, and everything conservatives say about these things is so patently false that only an idiot could believe it! And thus, when Kerry primed Obama for the debate, he gave Obama such a false picture of what Romney believes and how he thinks that Obama was absolutely shocked to face the real Mitt Romney.

Let's just hope Obama never wakes up to the real Mitt Romney before he has turned off so many voters that this election turns out a carbon copy of 1980.

Note added on Oct. 7, 2012: It looks like many people on Obama's team agree!

No comments: