Vote Your Conscience, If You Have One.

                         Vote Your Conscience

    Finding hope in the middle of the present election process can tend to be a challenge.  Who do you believe, the candidates or the media? Both tend to be biased by their own point of view.  The media would have you believe Hillary is ahead, but that is not what the signs say.  Everywhere I have traveled lately all the signs in the yards are for Trump.  I live in a Republican state, and have not seen a handful of Hilary signs,

    In the 2008 election I discovered signs and what they say do not really matter a whole lot.  The election center where I vote had plenty of signs out front for both parties.  However there was one sign missing.  Obama/Biden did not have a sign up. Oversight, racism, ignorance I have not a clue, but it did not change the outcome of the election. Trump’s followers are definitely a very verbal group and express their opinion or lack of one very loudly.

   Hillary is definitely not like Barack Obama. It is hard to see any big movement in support of her. She definitely has the qualifications and the track record to be the winner, but will she.  Only time will tell on that matter, but if she does not win, I do not think I will ever see a woman President in my life time.  Of course I never thought I would see a black one either.  At almost 70 and having been dead twice already I don’t figure I will see many more elections in my lifetime.

    As much as I would like to see a woman President in America, Hillary is not the one I would choose for that role.  I can’t vote for her and be honest to my faith in God. I am not trying to preach here, but either you believe the Bible or you don’t. In Leviticus it has several things to say about what God approves and doesn’t.  Reading the verses I am listing might open your eyes to where America is headed. Leviticus 19:26-30, 20:1-5, and 21:5 are very common things in this day and age.  So based on her views on abortion there is no way I can support her. Yes that is all Old Testament law, but so is the act of Creation. You do not pick and choose with God, it is all or nothing.

   America professes to be a Christian nation, but when you really look at the actions of our nation and the things it tolerates or allows,  America is far from what it claims to be.

 So what about Donald? Well Donald has his own set of values and views and unfortunately he has a lot going against him, probably more so than Hillary. Having been self-employed most of my life he appeals to me.  However his lack of conscience or values troubles me.  Either he did what he says he did, or he lied about the matter and both make me unwilling to put his finger on the button which could cause worldwide destruction.  The book of Proverbs 6:16-19 lists seven things that God can’t stand and Donald is seven for seven, which is not good. They are highlighted for emphasis.

             These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him:  A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood,  A heart that devises wicked imaginations, feet that are swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaks lies, and he that sows discord among brethren.

     Based on the above verses which sound like the playbook for Trumps campaign, he comes up short also.  The Bible also makes clear, “He that wavers is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.  So if I want to vote I need to come up with a different choice and for me it is the Libertarian Party and yes they have several things I do not like in their platform.  I have what I call my own party which is the Constitutional Antifederalist Reform Party.  Its platform totally agrees with me, but it is not a registered party. It is simply a summary of my own views of what I expect of a party.

     Looking back through history the only third party candidate I can find that actually won an election was Lincoln’s Republican Party which was a party that people voted for based on their conscience and their views on slavery which were not the same as the two majority parties of the time, which were the Whigs and the Democrats.

    America’s only hope for real change is for people to vote their conscience, even if it means not voting which means you are  condoning the evil we are being presented as choices. Voting a third party may give us time to seek change.  We are either part of the solution, or part of the problem. My goal is to vote out every incumbent in office. I am sure there are a few that might be worth keeping, but they are the exception not the norm.

    Electing a third party candidate should not really be that hard. Supposedly twenty percent of voters are independent voters, and five to ten percent already vote Libertarian. That means twenty-five to thirty are already looking for change.  So if we can simply get the word out in the next ten days and bring another fifteen percent to vote independent a third party candidate should win.  Supposedly half the voters in both parties are not voting “for” their candidate, but “against” the opposing candidate.  If those people can be reached to make a difference, there is hope in this election for starting a real change in America. 

    A third party candidate who wins has a large mountain to climb, but one thing he is not obligated to do is go along with the status quo.  He can vote his conscience and make decisions based on what is good for our country.  Not on what his personal agenda is, unlike the present two candidates.  I am not naïve enough to believe that a third party candidate will not have an agenda, but hopefully it will be one that is good for our country. The Libertarians are for getting out of the wars we are in, they are for balancing the budget, they are for cutting the size of government, and yes they are for decriminalizing drug possession and treating addicts and not incarcerating them. I disagree with their view on abortion.  However I can become active to make it a decision between a woman and her doctor, which is what it should be in my opinion. Moral issues should not be legislated.

    All I can do is pray that this changes enough minds to make a difference. If it does not we will live with the consequences, which at present are not very good,

                     End the Political Insanity

     Most Americans are totally tired of the present political circus.  While most people want a real change in government they are not willing to cross the sanity line to do it. A very large majority admit that neither candidate in the mainstream parties is going to fix anything.  Unfortunately they are right because both candidates can’t do what they are promising without Congressional support. 

     Most people admit it will take a new party and a new direction to change anything.   Yet they continue to vote for the same party over and over even though they know the definition of insanity.  For those who don’t, Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, the same way, and expecting to get a different result.  Unfortunately it ain’t gonna happen. That is one of the cold hard facts of life.

    Maybe the reluctance to do so is understandable as the last time a third party candidate who was voted into office literally caused the nation to be torn in half. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican running against a Whigs and Democrats. He won because people stood up and voted based on their convictions and not on popular opinion.

    Libertarians are noted for their stance on legalizing drug use. However it is the decriminalization of drugs, not the legalization that they espouse.  There is a big difference in the two views.  Decriminalization will stop the incarceration of people who have an addiction problem, and those who believe using God given plants is a right. Check Genesis 1:29 to see where that idea comes from.  It is time to tax the people who use and abuse drugs.  Stop putting the burden on society.  If we are going to incarcerate people lets incarcerate people who use guns to threaten their fellow citizens.  They are people who have no respect for life or the rights of others. They need to be removed from society permanently.

    Libertarians are against useless and needless wars. President Eisenhower warned us of the need to watch out for and to restrain the Military Industrial Complex or MIC.  The MIC has virtually taken over our government.  Shutting it down would virtually throw America into economic chaos. Right now we are involved in the perfect war from the MIC point of view.  Selling guns, weapons and ammunition with virtually no cost of life to America is the perfect form of war. Foreign lives do not matter to the MIC, nor do American ones, as long as the cash keeps flowing into their companies.

    Where are the hippies and the protestors when we need them? How did the draft end in the middle of the Vietnam War?  It ended because the peaceniks were making it costly for the MIC to conduct war the way they wanted to.  Weapons like napalm and Agent Orange were being banned.  They realized by ending the draft they would end the protests. Then they could get on with war and go back to doing business as usual.  Monsanto was making big money from the war. Yes the same company that is suspected of killing off the bees all over the world, and if it keeps up, the killing off of us.  Those same MIC companies are major contributors to the political process and ensuring they have access to the flow of government dollars.

     If you think that is a wild accusation. Look at the obesity problem in America.  They feed hormones and chemicals to cattle and poultry to make them grow to super sizes in shorter periods of time. Unfortunately those same hormones do the very same things to humans that consume the products.  If you think not, do some studying on DDT and its effects on life, especially the Bald Eagle.

    Both of the present political candidates will continue to do business as usual with the MIC companies and keep the economy flowing, no matter how many foreign lives it costs.  All those refugees we see in the news are refugees because of the choices our government has made.  America needs to wake up and realize that the Christian values this nation claims to believe in are not values our government is upholding.  The only way to return to caring about the image of our nation is to change the way it is led and does business, which neither of the present parties have any intention of changing.

    So if you care and you want to see change, be bold and vote for a third party candidate. Vote Libertarian, not necessarily the best way to go, but definitely a different way to go.