First Principles

A reader recently E-mailed me with this question, and I thought the night before the Iowa caucus would be a time to reflect on it here. Is there a good “conservative” “Republican” in the race? As much as I’d like to think the guy currently in office is vulnerable, the Republicans seem to be trying [...]

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Mitt Romney has always been my default candidate in this race.  He’s acceptable, good enough, has some points about him I really like, could beat Obama, and ultimately would be a vastly better President than the current one.  And his resume is full of taking economically failing institutions and slashing their waste until they’re successful [...]

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I missed last Thursday’s debate where Newt Gingrich and Michelle Bachmann took aim at the Supreme Court, and indeed, the Federal Judiciary generally.  But since then Newt has kept at it, and his answers make me incredibly nervous. The principle of limited government means that government must be strictly limited – even if you like [...]

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Thomas Sowell has a great column on this topic that’s very worth reading, especially here in Nevada where various elections have been (quite wrongly, in my view) analyzed based on whether a candidate was “too conservative” or not. Senator Goldwater was not crazy enough to start a nuclear war. But the way he talked sometimes [...]

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I couldn’t live blog tonight, as I had a class to teach.  But I listened to most of it on the radio, and watched the rest on DVR when I got home. I wish the entire nation could have seen Governor Sandoval’s speech last night, in order to contrast it with this one.  Sandoval gave [...]

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Two years ago, on the eve of another historical election, I wrote about my hopes for the election results and the next several years.  I said that my desires, in order of preference, were 1) that John McCain won, and was successful, 2) that Barack Obama won, and was successful, or, failing those two outcomes, [...]

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Attorney General Cortez-Masto’s decision to ignore the Governor’s request and to not join over one third of the Union in a Constitutional challenge against ObamaCare is a travesty.  The threat to our country and to our state particularly is real and immediate, and our participation in the lawsuit is critical to the rule of law [...]

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This little cartoon is fantastic – all of our kids need to see it once.  Our politicians need to watch it about once a week, I think.  It was as true in 1948 as it was in 1910 and as it is in 2010. What I really love about this video is that it shows [...]

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For a long time, I’ve believed that Jimmy Carter was a decent man at some point in the past who was in over his head as president, did good things for charities, and had grown bitter and stupid with age.  Certainly, I believed his behavior in the last few years has been reprehensible, but accepted [...]

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Burning Man is underway, and right now there are thousands of people partying in the desert and taking pictures of them and their friends with their own cameras of the event.  And despite their illusions of freedom, they don’t own a single one of those pictures.  Not really. But the Government of Black Rock City [...]

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In all the commentary on the John Ensign adultery debacle, there’s a tremendous lack of common sense or honesty, replaced instead by the kind of tribalism sourced from the same “logic” that makes Vikings fans think Brett Favre actually sucks (unless he decides to play for the Vikings). It’s understandable.  Conservatives want to rally around [...]

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I like this take from Big Hollywood blogger Leigh Scott: There are really only two core beliefs that you need to be considered a Conservative in my book.  One, as I’ve stated before, is the conviction that personal liberty is paramount.  Two, you don’t look to your enemies for validation. But while I agree with [...]

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Note:  I wrote most of this before President Obama announced his Sotomayor nomination.  Stand by for more on that in the coming days. A friend of mine from law school recently posted this article from The Gawker on Facebook.  Ordinarily, my friend, although I usually disagree with him, posts interesting and thought provoking links.  Alas, [...]

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I give this movie 4.5 Reagans (out of 5).

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One of the things I always meant to do much earlier in this blog is ruminate about movies from a political philosophy standpoint.  In law school, a good friend of mine and I would often argue over whether a movie was conservative or not.  It was an incredibly useful way to refine my own philosophies, [...]

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As a former Surface Warfare Officer, navigator, and Hawaii sailor, I’ve been following with interest the grounding of USS Port Royal (thankfully freed today).  While the actual mishap report won’t be released for months, I have some guesses about what went wrong – mostly because they’re the same things that always go wrong when a [...]

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Yeah – I’m talking to you, Guy Who Rammed His Car Into the Planned Parenthood Clinic.  Good work.  You just helped make sure your cause is stunted for about another decade.  If you think the unborn are lives worth saving as I do, you just did your part to ensure a lot more of them [...]

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Andrew Breitbart launched an awesome new blog today, a clearinghouse of Hollywood Conservatives blogging together in a site called “Big Hollywood.”  In my mind, this is a critical step in the rebirth of real conservatism in America.  I’m linking to it, and will check it often. One of the big differences between conservatives and libertarians, [...]

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And so will you.

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In this election, and in many debates I’ve had before and since, that political “moderation” is a self-evident virtue was and is often taken as, well, self-evident.  After all, “moderate” is a lot like “reasonable,” is it not?  And isn’t it the opposite of “extremist,” which no one wants to be? I have to admit [...]

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