Sunday, August 23, 2009

Summarization of my political views

"The two enemies of the people are criminals and government, so let us tie the second down with the chains of the Constitution so the second will not become the legalized version of the first."
-Thomas Jefferson

The Ohio Republican party sent me a census to take so, I did, even though I feel like the possible answers to the questions were not sufficient and could be ill-used as a statistic. I got caught on the first question because they wanted to know what type of Republican I am. Now, I am registered as a Republican but I do not believe myself to be one (at least not the type of Republican which propagates itself today) so no, I am not a 'Conservative Republican,' a 'Moderate Republican,' a 'Liberal Republican' (what exactly is this? It seems like an oxymoron), or an 'Independent who votes Republican.' I was unsatisfied with the choices.

What I am politically bothers me because I above all consider myself a Conservative. What shade, though, is the tricky part. My friend Sean calls me a "damn libertarian" but while I share many of the same beliefs with them (my computer even sports a Libertarian Party sticker! compliments of CPAC 2007), I can't bring myself to wholly commit to the party. I do love Rothbard and von Mises, though.

I'll have more thoughts on this later. I'm still deciding my stance on things and I'm a smorgasbord of Conservative - Libertarian - Agrarian (I blame a pure love of Wendell Berry). The one thing I can say definitely: I believe in the United States Constitution as the supreme law of the land. I believe in the Bill of Rights, particularly the 10th amendment. States' rights is the only true way to have a democracy. I love the Federalist papers and my favorite presidents are Grover Cleveland and Calvin Coolidge.

Everything besides that is just details the government shouldn't be minding itself with. They need to pay attention to national security and taxes; the rest should depend on the efforts of the people to better their lives and their situations.

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