It's actually quite simple.  Non-objective morality systems** inevitably reduce down into one of two end states:  meta-ethical relativism or utilitarianism.

If you run into "it's not wrong if I freely chose path X", you're probably dealing with the personal brand of moral relativism: the belief that morality is solely defined by each individual, because agreement on norms of morality can only be achieved at the individual level.  Thus a person chooses his own set of morality, and acts immorally only if he goes against his own code or is forced to do so by an outside party.

You can expand meta-ethical relativism so that a group of like-minded people shares the same morality system, but it must logically reduce to the personal level so long as you acknowledge the existence of the individual subject.

**If you want a shorthand description for objective vs non-objective systems, you could define objective as "any system that starts with causes or precepts exogenous to humanity".  But read up on your Aristotle and Aquinas first, because professional philosophers will start a huge fight about causality if you say that in their presence.

And when the ratings agencies realize the University is tossing hundreds of millions of dollars down a black hole, what do they think will happen to its rating (and its resultant cost of borrowing)?

The American Association of Neurological Surgeons put out a statement saying they "are unaware of any federal government document" like the one described, or any such meeting, or plan, and isn't it so horrible that those rabble rousing right wingers keep talking about death panels.

Of course that's what you would expect them to say, if news of a tentative policy paper got leaked after it was canned for political incorrectness, isn't it?

Well, OK, I'm angry now.  I was merely fatalistic before.  Is that an improvement?

Isn't the usual term for that "money laundering"?  Cycling a sum of money through multiple entities, to hide its intended destination from outside observers?

There is, but I think foreign policy is one of those cases where the Presidency often molds the person, not the other way around.

The most recent example is Obama himself, who campaigned as a dovish diplomatic type then proceeded to ramp up drone strikes, surge more troops into Afghanistan, appropriate more security powers to the federal government, bomb Libya, and make warlike noises about Iran. He also mismanaged our relationship with Britain, failed with his Russian "reset" policy, and hung Iranian protesters out to dry, among other failures.

The point is, outside a time of declared war, foreign policy stances during a campaign tend to become irrelevant once the candidate takes office.  Remember the 2000 George W Bush campaign, when he came out strongly against nation-building?

Agreed, but I have no faith in the Republican Senators' ability to push through decent candidates in the face of Democratic obstructionism, no matter which President is nominating judges.

It's a good message, but it's a highly technical one.  Arguably, GOP politics only reduced the polled uncertainty numbers, not the economic fundatmentals.  And I question how much real reduction in the Democratic platform the House can show.

If you can demonstrate a straight causation between reduced uncertainty and increased hiring/demand, that would be something... but you would beat a lot of economists who tried the same thing.

LP policies are even less likely to be enacted than (R) policies.

The title is a little misleading.  I haven't actually decided if I'm casting a tactical (R) vote this year, or a third party principled vote, or a protest write-in.  McCain's nomination in 2008 forced me into a write-in.

What actually prompted this post was that while many others seem to have been worn down into accepting Romney as the nominee, I've been worn down and browbeaten into believing he would make an acceptable President.  That seems to make the generic Republican ticket a safe bet, instead of caring whose name is in front of the (R).

James Delingpole may be correct that he's a toxic, party destroying Cameron.  Paul Rahe is certainly correct that he's a managerial progressive who won't reverse the march of big government.  But I just can't see how the end result of 4 years of his Administration would be functionally different from that of any other candidate's.

Simple answer:  we're conservatives, we don't take credit for government intervention causing economic benefits.

More cynically, you don't want to start claiming the current "recovery" as your own.  It's incredibly weak, the populace at large is not feeling the benefits, and the real unemployment rate is still trending higher at 23%.  Claiming happy days are here again won't work without a compliant media to push the lie.  (Which is why Obama will try that tactic anyway.)

Furthermore the recovery you see on paper is unsustainably built off the back of Federal Reserve and ECB money printing.  It will either crash or cause another crisis at some point, and Republicans should not be on record cheerleading the wrong side of economics again.

The solution for bad numbers based on bad policies is not trying to co-op the other guy's message.  The solution is to provide better numbers, better analysis, and better policies.  The marketing idea that "you must create discontent in customers to sell your product" still applies here... except the discontent is already out there.  The GOP needs to sell the product that matches the demand, not the product that denies market reality.

"Lowest point in three years", sure, if you're a naive enough journalist to accept the headline number without doing research.

Or you could go to Shadow Stats and see that, including long term discouraged workers, unemployment is actually higher than at the height of the financial crisis.

I look forward to MSNBC's corrected headline, "Unemployment at 15 year high under Obama".

I wondered that as well.  Unless they are officially recognized, you can't really say they are making "nonsense of the traditional notion that every citizen is equal before the law", even if they are socially damaging.

Anarcho-capitalist libertarians might object, saying there's no reason for a government monopoly on courts of justice if private consenting parties contract out to alternative institutions.  There's precedent for this, in the contract clauses that say all disputes will be solved by arbitration, or establishing jurisdiction under a specific state's law, or churches who define property ownership by orthodoxy.

The question is whether a black market in justice is as necessary as the black markets in commodities and consumer goods, which arise as a result of government restrictions.  Is there a good conservative argument against private civil justice systems?  (I think there is, but I wonder what others think.)

"This is amazing!  Just press the right button, and the Associated Press covers me with endorsements!  Now I know why McCain bought two."

It could be worse.  He could be stumping for that ever-present utopian fantasy, the mandatory "living wage".

"My God... it's full of moderates!"

Also, I hate to point it out, but this is what happens when we decide the only thing that matters is beating Obama.  We debate the merits of the candidates but end with "I'll vote for whoever wins it, because I just can't stand the incumbent".

The Democrats famously did this against George W Bush in 2004.  Kerry had plenty of defenders, but never a cult of personality around him; his primary voters were all about tactical electoral considerations.  The Dems were counting on widespread hatred of "the other guy" to pull in independent and centrist support for whoever they tossed on the ticket.

Mitt Romney is not John Kerry.  All eight GOP contenders are John Kerry.

I don't think any of the candidates ever had a personality cult going.  It would be impossible to find any GOP voters who think their preferred candidate will be a game changer, a savior, or The One Who Turns It All Around.  (With the possible exception of Ron Paul's group, who still don't think he could enact radical change in the face of Washington DC establishment.)

Go back and look at all the defenses of GOP candidates, and I bet you'll find most of them are actually defenses against potential general election attacks in a matchup vs Obama.  The rest are defenses against the "he'll scare off the base" attacks--also a general election worry.

In short, the bizarre aspect of candidate support now is that the base is thinking in tactical electoral terms, instead of purely ideological terms.  The candidates, lacking compelling reasons to vote for them individually, are incidental.  The pundits are pre-emptively defending the GOP nominee against future Democratic attacks; the nominee himself is relevant only as a bundle of selling points, not as a person.