Liberty is the Middle Path

General deference to liberty, skepticism to government coercion, examination of unintended consequences of governmental policy, empirical mindset, and humility in the world of politics.

From Introduction:

Cedric and I are sitting in my room right now trying to figure out the best way to get our blog started. We’ve tossed around general thoughts of what we believe politically, economically, etc., but really, I think the best place to start would be WHY we’re doing this blog.

Cedric jokingly says, “vanity”, and I don’t think that’s too far off the mark. Ha ha.

Nonetheless, I think we both stress that we’re two guys concerned about the future of the country.

This all began when one day we casually began talking about politics. I told Cedric that I was a Democrat and he nearly spit up.

For the next several months we debated back and forth the merits and burdens of politics, “helping others”, liberalism, conservatism, statism, fascism, socialism, Marx, Ron Paul, Barack Obama, and several other dorky political topics.

Wait… let me take a few steps back.

I, Ric, am a native Miamian, and graduated from Florida State University with a Bachelor’s Degree in History and was raised in an ultra-liberal household.

Cedric, from Huntsville, Alabama, graduated from the University of Alabama – Huntsville and Birmingham with degrees in Finance and Psychology (respectively), and raised by apolitical parents.

So we’re both game for having hours and hours of political conversations.

Anyway, Cedric won.

Several months later, I too tout the flag of Ron Paul, libertarianism (little “L” that is), and economic and social freedom. It’s interesting how we come from pretty different directions and somehow manage to land on the same conclusion.

Honestly, I think that the thing that really speaks to me are the concepts of unintended consequences, understanding the economy, and examining the motives of Politicians. I think if anyone really takes the time to think about the ideas of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility, then no one could honestly support anything strictly Democrat or Republican. They both require a lot of blind faith of leaders, and I definitely don’t agree with that.

As for Cedric, he’s interested in economics, feedback loops, decision making processes, the ideas of responsibility, the righteousness of coercion, the righteousness of the imposition of values onto others, political deception, and altruism.

But what I think we both care about greatly is questioning the motives behind the decisions that are made by our government for our lives, and preserving our freedom. We really hope to maintain an open mindedness to the whole process and don’t want to step into this with foregone conclusions. In this pursuit we have a commitment to fair mindedness, to truth, and an open and logical discourse.

We really do want to hear any well thought out opposing view points.

Really, we’ve just had way too many conversations about this not to blog about it, and we hope that we may be able to communicate our beliefs to you by appealing to your logic.