Romney

Of the two candidates for American president, I prefer Romney. However, I still have many issues with the Republican candidate. Part of the problem is inherent in our modern conception of politics. When the rubber hits the road, people vote for the candidate that will benefit them most personally. Promising benefits to a voter, even at the expense of others, will still get a vote.

So Romney, like Obama, has set about to give promise after promise about how he will make your life better. Romney will improve education, he will get you a job, he will spend more on military, etc. He claims to be all for smaller government, but this claim is hard to sustain when he is also promising everyone more from the government.

I applaud Romney for wanting to liberalize the economy, but it's really just skimming from the top. In theory, Romney is more in favor of the free market, but his advocacy of it is only as strong as the people will stomach. Obama on the other hand truly believes in socialism. He believes the government is always the solution and that if things don't work out, the government simply needs more money or better people.

This is why I am skeptical of the conservative-liberal paradigm. Both are fundamentally the same in believing they will use the coercive power of the government to "make things better". They both fundamentally believe the government just needs smarter bureaucrats, that departments just need more funding etc.

That's why I am a fan of Ron Paul. He wants to reduce government, not make it bigger. He is already skeptical of the gov. to make things better. He would rather let people be as free as possible. Meanwhile, the two dominant presidential candidates disagree with this. They want the power of government to fix the economy, something I think is impossible.