How I voted and why

In this post, I plan to piss off about 70% of my readers. Because I know them personally, and I know who they are or will be voting for. I do not generally talk about politics in person or on this blog, because I don't honestly care who you vote for so long as you examine the issues to the best of your ability and are choosing based on real information and not propaganda. CNN? NBC? MSNBC? CBS? The Huffington Post? 99% of newspapers out there? Liberal. Fox News? The Drudge Report? Michael Savage? Rush Limbaugh? Sean Hannity? Conservative. You have to get both sides of the story - or you're falling for the one side you're listening to.

Let's start with this. I am not and have never been a one issue voter. I stand for personal responsibility, I want the government to butt out of my business, whether it's about how many and what kinds of guns a person can have or my healthcare and what procedures my doctor and I decide I need are between my doctor and me. I don't think it's the government's business what sex my partner is, it's a contract between two consenting adults whether they're male and female or both male or both female. I do not think the government should provide healthcare to every citizen, healthcare is not a right, it's a benefit - just ask your HR department - and a government big enough to give you all you desire is big enough to take it all (and more) away. I do not want a government that big.

I do not think that federal government needs to be involved in education - that's a state issue. I do want my roads well maintained, and I want the inspectors making sure that my dog food isn't poisoned and my child's toys are not painted with lead paint. And I think the ATF being able to catch up to those 2 guys who were plotting to kill 88 black people and Obama before they actually carried out their terrible plan is one of the benefits gained when I gave up some of my rights to total privacy.

While I think this Halloween display of Palin is reprehensible, and I know that had it been Obama in the noose, that all hell would have broken loose, I also have to support the right to free speech which allowed this man to put it up. I disagree with the term "hate crime" I'm pretty sure that 99% of the people that are murdered are murdered because they are hated - it seems like an un-prosecutable offense if we start prosecuting for thought processes. Zero tolerance to me, means that people are giving up reason - just ask the little girl who brought a Korean pencil sharpener that her mother bought her to school only to be told it looked like a weapon and she would be suspended.

I am not opposed to immigration, but I think everyone should sign the guest book on the way in. And by guest book, I mean pass a background check. Other countries, you can keep your felons, thankyouverymuch. I am in favor of saving the earth, being environmentally friendly - I do not, however, think it should be legislated. My stances on the issues as a whole place me squarely in the middle. I am positively moderate.

I will not discuss the war in Iraq, I am smart enough to know that I do not have all the information that the heads of our government have, I do not even want to pretend that I know all they know. I certainly prefer not to be at war, no one is pro-war - just as no one is pro-abortion. And therefore I have no clue as to whether we should actually be there or not.

Beyond the social issues the main difference in the two candidates is how they intend to fix the economy. Specifically taxation. The thing is that the economy, if given half a chance will right itself - make no mistake that no matter who is elected, we will live through it and the economy will right itself with time anyway. And the question then becomes, which of these two has a plan that will least negatively impact me, both now and in the future?

Let's go back to the Pilgrims, shall we? I'm leaving out some minor details, but when the pilgrims landed here and William Bradford became the second governor after John Carver died, they set up a system by which everyone was given a piece of land. They were to farm that land and bring everything to a common store. Then each family could take what they needed to survive. Sounds like a great system if everyone worked together. But what they found was that it bred laziness, because some people didn't grow anything, because they figured out that if they just waited for everyone else to grow stuff that they could swoop in and take what they needed. There was no motivation to actually work. Sound familiar?

That didn't last and Bradford reorganized them to say that everything a person grew on his land was his own, which meant if you grew nothing, you had nothing to barter with, so you'd better get crackin'. With this new system they grew much more food. People bartered with each other, and in fact they had so much extra that they held the first Thanksgiving to thank God for all the blessings he had given them. Free enterprise succeeded where socialism had failed.

My choice in this election came down to this: I may not make $250,000 annually. But one day I hope to. I hope to make more than that. I hope to work hard enough to be a millionaire - or alternatively win the lotto and not work hard, but still be a millionaire. And with a government who does not spend what they get now very wisely? I see no reason to give them more, whether it's from my pockets or the pockets of someone else who worked hard for their money.

Do you know that 80% of millionaires are first generation millionaires and are self made - that is, they didn't inherit that money. They earned that money. About 66% of them are self employed. They took chances and worked hard and were rewarded for their efforts. They saved and lived below their means in order to keep that money.

Oh, you say Obama's not going to mess with your taxes, so you're okay with that. Obama's going to tax businesses more. Put more taxes on big oil companies. Evil oil companies. Do you know who is going to pay that? You are. Every time you fill up your gas tank. Taxing big businesses never hurts the business, it hurts the consumer.

When you as a person/family get to a point in your checking account where you don't have enough money to do everything you want to do, what do you do? Do you run into your boss's office and demand a raise? No. You stop spending on the crap you don't need. You tighten your belt and you try to make your household budget work more efficiently. That's what we need here - effectively spending what they already have. Not more money.

Neither of these candidates is ideal for that approach. McCain's plan to buy up bad mortgages and renegotiate them makes me queasy just thinking about it. Ron Paul would have been the best candidate. McCain and Palin are closer to it than Obama and Biden are. I voted for McCain. I voted for the lesser of two evils. I voted more against Obama than I did for McCain.

Informed dissenting opinions are welcome, but play nice in the comments or I'm going to turn them off. Tomorrow we go back to silly baby pictures and we can pretend this never happened.