I was reading a lot of the reaction from some of my regular conservative blog reads, on Mitt Romeny's "Religion Speech".  The general reaction seems to be that it struck a positive cord.  We shouldn't hold a person's religious beliefs against them.  And to be fair to Mitt, I don't hold his personal religious beliefs against him.  If they were simply a religious politician, I'd be fine with that.  The problem that I seem to have with a lot of very religious politicians is that they don't keep their beliefs personal.  Their beliefs often times drive their policies.  That, I have a problem with.

I have a problem with big government intrusiveness into my life, no matter what the driver is behind it.  For many of the Democratic candidates, it seems to come out of a sense of liberal guilt, and a desire to right economic wrongs done unto the poor by evil corporations.  For many of the Republican candidates, it comes out of Christian* charity, and a desire to enforce some sort of Christian* morals.  But either way... the result is the same.  Someone is telling me to live my life in a way that I don't choose, and doing so at the point of a gun.  Let's take a look at some of Mitt's policy ideas.  First he talks about cutting federal spending, reforming entitlements, and looking at all departments "stem to stern" (was he in the Navy?).  Great lip service, but are you willing to honestly follow through?  But let's look at some of his other ideas.

For instance, on Education, he first says that "Governor Romney Believes Our Education System Works Best When We Have More Local Control Of Our Schools."  OK... but then further down, "Governor Romney Will Improve Upon And Enhance No Child Left Behind (NCLB). He believes that No Child Left Behind has played an important role in stressing the role of accountability and high standards in improving our schools.".  Uh huh.  No Child Left Behind specifically takes away local power and puts in the hands of the federal government.  So how can you improve local control, and take it away the same time?  Of course, Mitt would also like to Nationalize his Massachusetts insurance plan, which has not surprisingly proved to be quite a boondoggle, and has become twice as expensive as originally anticipated.  We're not looking good so far in the federal spending arena.

My favorite section of his web site is called "American Culture & Values".  This will be good... you just know it.  So how does Mitt plan on using his smaller, leaner, cost effective federal government to improve our Culture?  Well, the good Governor will force all computer manufactures to put optional porn filters in computers.  To "protect our children", he will enforce all our nation's obscenity laws.  He mentions this after talking about the need to have a Supreme Court that obeys the Constitution.  Apparently the good Governor has forgotten about the 1st Amendment.  Or maybe he doesn't think the Constitution applies to the Executive Branch.  He does mention the need for Free Speech in reference to McCain-Feingold though... so you're free to speak with your wallet for him, but he won't let you speak freely back.  How generous of him.

Of course, the normal calls for Roe v. Wade to be overturned are thrown in "so that states can decide for themselves"... but he wants a Federal Marriage Amendment to "protect the sanctity of marriage".  In other words, federalism when its convenient for my religious beliefs.  Go figure.

Part of the problem I have has nothing to do with religion.  It has to do with him being a Governor.  I used to think that it was good for a President to have executive experience, but now I'm not so sure.  Every time I look at former governor's plans for being President, they keep talking about how they want to nationalize everything they did as governor.  It shows a basic lack of understanding in Federalism, and the power that they ought to be giving up as President.

What I want from a President is not someone who talks about how he is going to use his newfound power for some greater purpose, but rather someone who is going to give up power, and give it back to the people.  Ron Paul is that man.  Government has been taking power away for far too long.  We don't just need a new direction, we need a reversal in direction.

*I put a star by Christian, mostly because I think a lot of Christians seem to think that Mormons are like Christians, like Protestants and Catholics are Christians.  This actually far from true, and Mormons aren't Christians.  That's nothing against Mormonism... it's just a common misconception.  Saying that Mormonism is another kind of Christianity is like saying that Islam is another form of Christianity.