The labels of ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are shit. I quickly lose respect for anyone who polarizes themselves into either corner of the socio-economic spectrum. I am none of the above. Below are my guiding principles, which the conservatives will consider liberal, the liberals consider conservative libertarian, and the libertarians consider pragmatic. People with an open mind will probably consider these views open-minded. I consider them reasonable.
1. Wipe your own ass. You are are responsible for yourself, your choices, your actions and their consequences. Personal accountability and responsibility are the cornerstones of Freedom. Freedom comes first. And it has a capital F.
2. The role of government is to represent and serve the PEOPLE first. Artificial personal entities (political parties, companies, activist groups, unions etc) come a distant second.
3 Civil liberties apply to everyone, and THEN to you. Citizen, noncitizen, alien, it doesn’t matter. The only exception to this is in military combat, where the Articles of War apply.
4. Imposition of morality by rule of law leads all men to be amoral and self-serving. There is no room in the world to be good without the exercise of free will.
5. Your freedom OF religion is another’s freedom FROM religion, and vice versa. Failure to respect the sanctity of others’ beliefs devalues your own in equal measure. If you want to live in a theocracy, move to Iran.
6. Capitalism is a philosophy of economics, not of government. The same is true of socialism. He who governs via economics is a practitioner of fascism.
7. Some problems cannot be effectively accommodated by pure capitalism. Publicly funded social programs provide the necessary things that the free market cannot provide on its own. These programs should be kept to a minimum, but guided by pragmatism, not by idealism. If the ideals are strong enough, they’ll be privately funded by the free market.
8. There is no replacement for logical consistency.
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A few general statements derived from my Principles:
There are countless communities and subcultures and moral foundations in this nation. Laws are meant to be universal and govern over all. Views taken by one or some subcultures are to be enforced within those subcultures and not within federal law. That’s what cultural rules, city codes and county statutes are for.
The separation of church and state at the national level is fundamental. I consider the steering of national decisions by religious argument a bold-faced attempt at totalitarianism, an affront against personal Freedom and I will defend that Freedom with relentless zeal. See the next one…
The purpose of the second amendment is to empower the people to protect their own freedom. The means of bearing arms may not be the most relevant means to do so in this day and age, but this principle of our founding must not be ignored or undermined.
The trend toward litigious, sue-happy victim-playing is a self-imposed denouncement of personal freedom. Wipe your own ass.
The hypocrisy of moral conservatism is disgusting. It is an exercise in selfishness – people trying to shutter others’ freedoms to ‘protect’ their own. Try leading by example instead of turning the constituency into amoral followers. You say protectionism is a bad economic policy; well guess what, it’s a bad social policy too.
It’s ironic that the Republicans who claim they want “small government” are the same ones steering its laws, actions and budgets toward Federalism and central control. The people who truly want small government back their words with action, leaning toward fewer federal laws and a greater emphasis on states’ rights.
