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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.

Tuesday, September 04, 2012

The scene shifts

Today, the Democrats will begin their convention in Charlotte. The rhetoric will be very different from what was said in Tampa last week. They will be defending the indefensible, in my opinion, but the incredible facts are that they will, mostly, be believing what they say.

Sometimes I wonder, when I see quotes from Democrats, whether we're on the same planet. Barack Obama may boast of “Obamacare,” but the fact is that the majority of the American people want it replaced by a different plan. He talks of Romney planning to “raise taxes on the middle class” to distribute in “tax cuts for the rich,” but nowhere is that mentioned in any Mitt Romney proposal — cleaning up tax loopholes, which Romney does favor, if anything disproportionally affects the rich. And tax brackets, under Mitt Romney's proposals, would go down for everyone.

Obama does not understand one thing: when you reduce tax rates, sometimes the government gets more revenue. In such cases, letting money remain in the hands of businessmen creates jobs, the newly-employed pay taxes on their income, and revenues go up enough to compensate for those lower rates. And people spend more, so those businessmen take in more and pay taxes on those higher revenues, so even though the tax rate goes down, the total tax paid can increase. This has happened time and again. The converse is also true. When you increase taxes, revenue can actually decrease — while reducing employment.

We need new leadership in Washington, but the incredible ideas we will hear coming out of Charlotte will try to convince the American people that we don't, that four more years of the kind of “leadership” that has driven our economy into the ground the past 3½ years is the recipe to cure our problems. There was a form of quack medicine called “homeopathy” based on the idea that “like cures like.” It was nonsense, but Obama's economics are a disease that the Democrats will propose curing by homeopathic means, it seems. Just listen to what they say in Charlotte. Obama has already said, about a month or so ago, “We tried that [meaning Romney's call to cut taxes and spending] and it didn’t work … Just like we’ve tried their plan, we tried our plan — and it worked,” and I say, “What planet are you on,” if you think his plan worked?

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