This Thoughts I Believe
My personal political philosophy started in the economics department of Ball State. I took the basics, as well as a class in monetary policy, and two or three in third world economics. I can trace the development of my thought process from an intuitive grasp of Adam Smith, then a thread can be ran directly to JS Mill through Veblen tying up the loss ends at the Austrian school with Von Mises, Hayek, and everybody's favorite crazy Uncle Friedman. I rejected Marx and JM Keynes. Mr. Philip's curve proved to be an anomoly and not a rule - I just wish the rest of the world would give up their school book learning in the face of 40 years of history.
I did dabble a bit in non-economic thinkers and the thoughts they thunk. Rousseau seemed too silly and too French and downright not realistic. Hobbes seemed about right. It seemed to fit - in general. If, like Bush, you include Jesus in that group, the self-sacrificeing quality of his stuff still seems to rub me the wrong way. Of course, I then went to bed with Ayn Rand.
Admittedly, alot of this stuff was self read and self taught. I was left to my own devices. I'm sure there are holes in my knowledge and also holes in my logic in places. Blogging helps this.
I say all this because I don't want to be included in a group I found with many who call themselves conservative but have no idea why. It's a large group. (Alternatively, I've most liberals can't express why they are without defining against conservatives, but I'll pick on them later.) These conservatives listen to Rush or Hannity. They don't like taxes or abortion although I've found they will quickly change when taxes pay for their kids school loans or their 14-year old daughter gets pregnant.
I say all this because I want you to know I'm serious about the conclusions I come to. that was until I had a kid and then 9/11 happened. Now my personal politics can be boiled down to two points. I'll vote for who ever...
Stay You.
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I did dabble a bit in non-economic thinkers and the thoughts they thunk. Rousseau seemed too silly and too French and downright not realistic. Hobbes seemed about right. It seemed to fit - in general. If, like Bush, you include Jesus in that group, the self-sacrificeing quality of his stuff still seems to rub me the wrong way. Of course, I then went to bed with Ayn Rand.
Admittedly, alot of this stuff was self read and self taught. I was left to my own devices. I'm sure there are holes in my knowledge and also holes in my logic in places. Blogging helps this.
I say all this because I don't want to be included in a group I found with many who call themselves conservative but have no idea why. It's a large group. (Alternatively, I've most liberals can't express why they are without defining against conservatives, but I'll pick on them later.) These conservatives listen to Rush or Hannity. They don't like taxes or abortion although I've found they will quickly change when taxes pay for their kids school loans or their 14-year old daughter gets pregnant.
I say all this because I want you to know I'm serious about the conclusions I come to. that was until I had a kid and then 9/11 happened. Now my personal politics can be boiled down to two points. I'll vote for who ever...
1. Lowers my taxes so I can feed my family betterIt's that simple. Bush meets these qualifiications although I think he could be a little rougher on the Mooslims. He's also lowered taxes quite a bit. As I look to 2008, that's how I'll be basing my decisions - taxes and dead terrorist. From this vantage point I only see one figure that even starts to meet those qualities and, oh my, his name ends in a vowel.
2. Kills Arab terrorists wherever they be with extreme prejudice so my kids won't have to deal with this.
Stay You.
Back to Main Page
posted by Howard McEwen, CFA at Friday, August 11, 2006
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