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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.

Thursday, July 03, 2014

And others agree!

Back on December 12, 2010, I posted a message entitled “My own rating of Presidents.” I thought at that time that the worst one we'd had within my lifetime was Bill Clinton. I subsequently revised my opinion, and on May 17, 2012 I posted a message here entitled “Obama: the worst of all Presidents? Perhaps not, but it's close!” At that time I thought perhaps that Jimmy Carter beat out Pres. Obama for the title of “worst in my lifetime,” both being much worse than Clinton. My opinion continued that way, and even as late as October 30, 2012, in a post entitled “Probably the best reason to support Romney,” I made the comment that “[o]nly Jimmy Carter, of those presidents whose terms of office have been within my lifetime, has been worse, I believe.” I subsequently changed my point of view. In the past year or so, Obama has beaten out Carter for “worst,” based on the fact that Carter at least tried to follow the Constitution, while Obama seems to feel that the Constitution doesn't apply to him.

The latest news is that a lot of Americans agree with me. A poll conducted by Quinnipiac University has found that 33% of the respondents ranked Obama as the worst since World War II — which is really the same time frame as my “worst in my lifetime,” since I was not quite three years old when WWII ended. This was a larger number than chose any other President. Now It is also true that George W. Bush and Richard Nixon, neither of whom I would call particularly bad, also ranked up there in this poll, but Obama was #1. And 40% now say that Bush was a better president than Obama has been so far — though an almost equal number say the reverse. An even bigger number, 45%, say we would be better off if Mitt Romney were president, and that exceeds the number who disagree by seven percentage points.

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