"When a government becomes powerful, it is destructive, extravagant and violent; it is an usurper which takes bread from innocent mouths and deprives honorable men of their substance for votes with which to perpetuate itself." - Cicero
"Government is not reason. It is not eloquence. It is force." - George Washington
"In all that people can do for themselves, the government ought not to interfere." - Abraham Lincoln
"The most cogent reason for restricting the interference of government is the great evil of adding unnecessarily to its power." - John Stuart Mill
"The government's role is whatever the government defines it to be." - Helen Clark

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The republican candidates are all shit

They always are. I'm just saying that they still are. But unlike the Democrats, they can be separated on policy. I'm just going to put this in a table. The last column is based entirely on my personal views so good includes supporting abortion rights, same-sex marriage and partnerships, gun ownership, school choice, and tougher sentencing. Bad includes supporting restrictions on political campaigning, affirmative action, mixing of church and state, enviro-lunacy, and limits on legal immigration or excessive crackdowns on immigration.

Name		Economy		Defence		Civil Liberties
Giuliani		Good.		Good.		Mixed.
Huckabee		Bad.		Bad.		Bad.
McCain		Mostly Good.		Good.		Bad - sworn enemy of free speech. Above average on everything else.
Romney		Mediocre if he's telling the truth.		Mediocre if he's telling the truth.		Bad if he's telling the truth.
Thompson		Good.		Good.		Mostly bad.

I'm not looking at electability as virtue in its own right but this is limited to the viable candidates only so Ron Paul is out. Huckabee would of course be a fucking disaster but it's hard to choose between the other four.

Romney is the weakest of them. I don't mind that he's changed his position on lots of issues since he was elected governor of Massachusetts. The problem is, I don't know which of those changes are genuine and which are fake, and his current positions aren't that great anyway. On the plus side, he is the only one supporting free speech in election campaigns.

Thompson has the least political experience, but as with Obama, I regard that an asset rather than a flaw. It didn't hurt Lincoln and Washington. He is the one most likely to rise in my estimation as more information comes in.

If it wasn't for the law that bears his name, McCain would be an easy choice but I'm not sure his promotion of that law is forgivable under any circumstances.

Giuliani is the one I would most like to have a beer with but that's not much use as a test. Other than abortion he isn't as liberal on social issues as I first thought.

At the moment I think I prefer McCain though it's very close.