What I believe

Every grade on this site comes from one idea: every person owns their own life. This page lays out that idea, the test I use to apply it, the eight principles it gives and where they lead, with the numbers behind it, so you can argue with it.

One idea

Every person owns their own life: free to speak, believe, work, earn, trade and love as they choose, as long as they leave everyone else the same freedom. And a free people needs the strength to keep it.

That isn't left or right. It's the idea America was founded on. The line that matters in politics runs between the people who widen that freedom and the people who take it away.

How I judge: by what a rule does

I judge a policy by what happens to freedom when it becomes the rule, everywhere it applies, for years. Not by its intentions, its slogan or who proposed it.

Three things follow from that. What is at stake decides how much a question weighs: life and the survival of free countries come first, because every other freedom depends on them. Deeds outweigh words: a law signed or a war fought counts for more than a speech, and for a politician with no votes in Congress a principle only counts in full once there are several acts or statements on it, because a promise is easier than a decision. And the same rule applies to everyone, friend or opponent, left or right, whatever their religion or origin.

The eight principles

Applied honestly, that test gives eight principles. Every vote and every statement I grade is counted under one of them. The ones that protect life and free countries weigh the most, and none of them decides a grade on its own.

• Confronts tyranny and terror. Stands up to the regimes and armed movements that rule by fear and export it: the regime in Tehran and the militias it arms, Putin's war, the Chinese Communist Party, terror groups and the networks that fund them.
• Stands with free nations and free peoples. Backs democracies under attack and people rising against their rulers: Israel, Ukraine, Taiwan, the people of Iran, and the alliances that keep free countries safe. Rejects isolationism, left and right.
• Free speech and a free mind. Against censorship by government or at its request. Every opinion, about any party, any idea or any religion, may be said and argued with.
• Free markets and free trade. People keep what they earn and trade with whom they choose: lower taxes, less regulation, open trade, no price controls and no planned economy.
• One law, equal for every individual. Rights belong to each person, never to a race, a sex or a group. Women and gay people equal under the same law; no one favoured or held back by race or sex; no ideology forced on children or soldiers.
• Freedom of conscience. The state takes no side on religion. Every church, synagogue, mosque and temple is free, so is having no faith, and no religion's law is imposed on anyone.
• Strong enough to stay free. Funds, equips and staffs the armed forces a free country needs to deter its enemies.
• Citizenship and the rule of law. A free country decides who joins it, enforces its own laws, vets newcomers, and keeps out those who come to destroy its freedoms.

Where it leads at home

Free speech for every opinion, about any party, any idea or any religion. Free markets: lower taxes, less regulation, open trade, and no price controls or planned economy. One law, equal for every person, so nobody is favoured or held back by race or sex, and women and gay people are equal under the same law. A country that decides who joins it and enforces its own laws.

Freedom of conscience. Every church, synagogue, mosque and temple is free, so is having no faith, and no religion's law is put over anyone who did not choose it. That protects the believer and the non-believer in exactly the same way.

Where it leads abroad

Freedom is won or lost where free countries and free people are attacked. That's why I stand with Israel, the one liberal democracy in its region, and with Ukraine, Taiwan and the people of Iran.

The regimes that rule by fear are the largest threat to liberty there is: the Islamic Republic and the militias it arms, Putin's war, the Chinese Communist Party. Confronting them is on liberty's side. Appeasing them, or leaving their victims to them, is not, whether the call comes from the left or the right.

What I want from America: defeat its enemies, and stand with the allies who are fighting them. Israel is one. The Iranian people are another. They are up against the regime whose militias killed American troops in Iraq. Every enemy America's allies defeat is one less threat to Americans.

Why freedom abroad is America first

A fair question: why should an American voter care how Congress votes on the Islamic Republic or Ukraine? Because Americans come out ahead when free people win. Here is what that looks like in numbers.

• Free countries buy American. Poland bought $406 million of American goods in 1990, its first full year without communism. In 2025 it bought $14.3 billion. South Korea, a dictatorship until 1987, went from $6 billion in 1985 to $69 billion.Source: U.S. Census Bureau, trade in goods with Poland and with South Korea
• Old enemies become customers and allies. Germany and Japan were at war with America in 1945. In 2025 Germany bought $83 billion of American goods and Japan $81 billion.Source: U.S. Census Bureau, trade in goods with Germany and with Japan
• Free countries share the cost of defense. In 2025 every NATO ally met the target of 2 percent of its economy on defense for the first time, and Europe and Canada raised defense spending by 20 percent in one year.Source: NATO, Secretary General's annual report, 26 March 2026
• The regimes that threaten Americans are dictatorships. Freedom House scores Iran 10 out of 100 for freedom, China 9 and Russia 12. None of them answers to its own voters. The Pentagon counts at least 603 American troops killed in Iraq by Islamic Republic-backed militants.Source: Pentagon statement of 4 April 2019, reported by Military Times Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2026
• Trouble abroad shows up in American prices. After Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, a gallon of gasoline went from $3.28 in January to $5.01 in June. In 2026, with the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, oil averaged $105 a barrel in June and July.Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, on gasoline in 2022 and its release of 9 June 2026

Dollar figures are as recorded at the time, not adjusted for inflation.

What I argue against

The same test, pointed the other way. Planned economies and Marxism in every form, because they take away the freedom to work and own. Identity politics and racism alike, because both judge people by their group. Religious law over people who did not choose it, from any religion. Censorship, whoever does it. And isolationism, from the left or the right, because it leaves free countries to the tyrants who attack them.

So a member of Congress who is strong on liberty at home and weak on confronting tyranny abroad gets a middling grade here, and so does the reverse. That's on purpose.

Who is saying this

I come from a daily live show called Liberty Politics. Its hosts and its panel don't share a religion or a party. Atheists, Christians, Hindus and Jews are all part of it.

If you disagree with some of this, you're still welcome here. Bring your argument.

How this page changes

This page grows as the show argues these questions out on air. The newest change is at the top of this list.

• 29 October 2026. Rewritten around one idea and one test: a rule is judged by what it does to freedom. The page now shows the eight principles every grade comes from, how they are weighted, and where they lead at home and abroad.
• 5 October 2026. Added what I want from America: defeat its enemies, and stand with the allies who are fighting them.
• 5 October 2026. First version, with the case for why freedom abroad is America first.