Weekly Notes: January 11, 2008

2008 is already flying by for me because of the giant task at work known as YEAR END. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about this week:

• I’ve been thinking a lot about Ron Paul, and I want to make it clear that I don’t actually think he’s racist. I dug a bit more into the story about the Ron Paul Political Report, or whatever it was called, and his subsequent remarks alleviated some of my fears about his beliefs. The next few notes are my revised quick thoughts about Paul.
• I love his record on civil liberties and non-intervention in foreign policy in general, except in humanitarian efforts. I understand where he’s coming from, but I would prefer that he support efforts like the one to stop the Darfur genocide. As the barriers between us and the rest of the world get smaller, I find that some of his stances are increasingly impractical in that regard. This particular aspect of foreign (and domestic) policy is probably my biggest gripe with him.
• He seems like perhaps the most genuine and forthcoming candidate (on the Republican side) about his beliefs, and it’s by a huge margin. I love that he kept up his OB/GYN practice as a Congressman, delivering babies while back at home on the weekends.
• I’m not totally on board with his economic policy because I admittedly don’t understand how it would all work. I would like to see some specifics/estimates for what might happen if he follows through on some of his plans to eliminate certain branches of federal government (income tax, education, etc.).
• While I disagree with him on some religious ideas, his libertarian philosophy of government virtually negates whatever influence those ideas might have on the actions he takes.
• Call me a communist or whatever you want for bringing this up, but I’d like to see how Paul would combat the problem of poverty in our own country.  I’m not saying he can’t do some things to help, but it’s hard to do that when you plan to cut as much spending as he does.  Not all poverty is the result of laziness, and we have a flawed welfare system in place right now trying to combat it.  So here’s hoping he would try.

I would be interested in anyone’s comments or other thoughts about Paul. While I still back Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee and hopefully for the general election, I strongly favor Paul among Republicans, perhaps now more than ever.

Other notes:

• I heard on the radio this morning that the federal government has been failing to pay some of their phone bills related to their warrantless domestic spying program.  The people in charge of this program not only don’t care about my civil liberties, but now they also don’t care about wasting away my money.  This should surprise no one.
• In a related story, President Bush says he would be an “agent of change” if he were running for president now.  In the same breath he was denying that others’ messages of change were a rebuke of his presidency, but it’s still an interesting thought.
• Chuck Knoblauch has nothing to to with baseball, apparently.
• Mac Thomason is doing his yearly player reviews over at Braves Journal, which is far and away the best Braves blog out there.  His player insights are informed, concise, and interesting.

I know I posted this kind of late in the day, so I guess it will have to be food for your weekend thought.  There are lots of good major college basketball games tomorrow, and Harding will start the conference season against UAM.