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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.

Monday, February 08, 2016

It isn't an "either-or" choice!

This past Saturday, there was a debate in New Hampshire among the candidates for the Republican nomination for the Presidency. And the most talked-about exchange was between Chris Christie and Marco Rubio.

Now as I've said before, Christie is among my favorite candidates for the nomination, while Rubio is the one that looks like the actual winner. So I'm a bit uncomfortable with such a degree of hostilities between them; should Rubio actually get the nomination, I should hope that Christie could support him against the far worse candidate (probably Hillary Clinton) that the Democrats will nominate. But the gist of the exchange was that (according to Christie) Rubio's short experience in the Senate — comparable to Barack Obama's when he first ran eight years ago — is insufficient preparation for the Presidency. And Rubio's retort was that Obama's failure is not from inexperience, but that there is a “fiction that Barack Obama doesn't know what he's doing. He knows exactly what he's doing.”

Well, in my estimation, it is not an either-or choice. Obama's inexperience has led to many problems in the past seven years or so, thus Christie is right in pointing to Obama's election and saying, “What we need to have in this country is not to make the same mistake we made eight years ago.” But Obama has chosen a direction for this country that is contrary to its best interests, as Rubio has implied.

So both Christie and Rubio have valid points to make. And we should recognize this.

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