About a month and a half from now, millions of people will be lining up to cast their vote for the next President of the United States. Many will vote Republican, and many will vote Democrat. I will be voting for neither of them. That isn't to say that I won't be voting at all. It simply means that I will be voting for someone else completely. I will be voting for the Libertarian candidate for President, and this is why.
Over the last few years, I've begun to pay more attention to the ideas and policies being pushed for by the two reigning parties. What I've heard has convinced me that neither one takes their oath to "defend the Constitution of the United States of America" seriously. They both have ideas of how to run the country which directly contradict the Constitution and the spirit with which it was concieved. I will admit that the Constitution was designed to be able to grow with the times, but only so long as that growth remained within the framework established by its creators. In essence, as long as the Constitution grows in a way which ensures the continuation of freedom, liberty, and personal responsibility for all citizens, the country would remain healthy. But those principles are not what the Republicans and Democrats have in mind.
The Democrats are all about freedom where personal ideals are concerned. What they aren't all about is the idea that what a person earns from whatever job they may have belongs solely to the earner. They seem to be convinced that if a person earns above a certain amount, that they must be required by law to share a portion of that income with those who, for whatever reason, are making significantly less. As if it's the responsibility of those who have actually done well financially to support those who haven't, even if those who haven't aren't even trying to do so. I firmly believe that if you want to do well in this life, it's your responsibility to take the steps necessary to make it happen. It is not the responsibility of those who have worked hard for the majority of their life in order to provide themselves with a good life to fund the lives of those who can't or won't. I appreciate that there are some who are having a hard time through no fault of their own, and some limited assistance is welcome. But when all you do is reinforce the idea that a person need only ask the government, and thus the taxpayer, for support and not have to support yourself, you are only harming society as a whole. And when the government forces those who have worked so hard to be successful to foot the bill for that unlimited support, you encourage the idea that there's no point in even trying to be successful, since the government will simply take that success and give it to those who haven't earned it.
That is why I refuse to support and vote for the Democrats.
The Republicans are just as bad, though in a completely different vein. Where the Democrats seek to control what we as people can do with our money, and how successful we can be, the Republicans seek to control how we live our personal lives. They base their decisions, their legislation on religious ideals which are not necessarily shared by all citizens. They want to bring back "traditional American values", which to them means living life per the Christian bible. Now, I know I'm not Christian, and neither are many of my friends. I also know that there are many more people throughout this nation who are not Christian, and who follow a wide variety of faiths, philosophies, and spiritual paths. So how does it make sense that the Government be allowed to dictate how people live their lives based on only one point of view. This nation was founded on the basis of tolerance, and allowing its citizens to choose how they live, so long as it doesn't harm the livelihood of others. That does not mean harming the "sensibilities" of others. If that were the case, the first amendment would have been written about something else entirely. Instead, it promises that all citizens had the write to say, believe and practice what they wanted, not what the government sanctions. Yet look at some of the legislations that have been brought up lately. Laws forbidding citizens from have state sanctioned marriages because they offend religious sensibilities. Laws attempting to forbid a woman from having certain medical procedures based on religious precepts that, per these religious conservatives own texts, are no longer valid.
All I ask is that whatever government may be in power, you allow me to live my life in the manner I choose, and to make the decisions I feel are right for me and mine so long as I am willing to live with the consequences of those decisions. But as I've already shown, that is not what either of the two reigning parties are interested in. Their only interest is in molding this nation to fit their concept of proper society. On the one hand, you have a group which would allow personal freedoms as long as they can dictate everyone's financial decisions. On the other, you have those that would allow you to do what you want with your money, only as long as you live your personal life according to the strictures of their personal beliefs. Neither of these are acceptable to me, and I will not simply fall prey to the "lesser of two evils" voting practice. In my eyes, neither is a lesser evil than the other. So I refuse to support either.
All of this is why, come voting day, I will be casting my vote for the libertarian candidate. And for any who would like more information on the party and its candidate, I highly recommend going to www.lp.org and doing a little reading.
