As Mitt Romney announces his candidacy for president, every conservative — indeed, every lover of liberty — should remember that this is a man who CONTINUES to believe that it is ethically defensible for a state government to require its citizens to buy a product they don’t want, simply on the basis that they live and breathe in the state.  By the logic of Romneycare, the state can mandate that an individual buy asparagus. It can force you to buy toy choo-choo trains. Heck, a perverse state could even FORCE you to buy cigarettes.

Yeah, yeah, I know: Nothing in the U.S. Constitution explicitly prohibits such a mandate at the state level. Fine. This isn’t an argument about constitutionality; it’s an argument about First Principles, about the nature of liberty itself. Romney fails the test of First Principles; he fails to respect the Natural Law; he fails to observe the idea that government’s proper ends and means should be limited.

His full name is Willard Mitt Romney. Old horror-movie watchers may think the name is appropriate.