Voting ones conscience...

The Republican and Democratic conventions for the 2012 Presidential election are over. While I have little interest in these outdated, bombastic displays of party affiliation...it is about the only chance one gets to see THEIR version of what the party is standing for...or not...this time around.

For the past two or more decades I have found myself voting for small independent party candidates...usually of the Libertarian persuasion. I miss my freedoms. It is getting harder and harder for me to find appreciable difference between the two main party platforms in the USA. At the highest level...these politicians are all about bigger government, more power and false promises and pretenses abound. I am one American who has had enough of this and would like to believe it is not too late to fall back into a more rational ¨Jeffersonian¨ approach to government. I read somewhere recently though I haven't verified or run the numbers that our national debt now comes out to over $800,000 per citizen. Of course, a growing percentage of people living in America are NOT citizens...so I assume this number doesn't include everyone you see in the streets there. Whatever the real number is, it is obviously insurmountable for our citizens to begin to pay off this debt our auspicious leaders have gotten us into over the past 60 or so years...and growing exponentially. None of these major party candidates seem to have any real plan for paying this off. The cuts they are recommending...that no one seems too excited about...is about the same as flicking a flea off the hide of an elephant. Any simple mathematician will tell you that these numbers based on our economic output are insurmountable. The USA for all intents and purposes is BANKRUPT...yet nobody dares declare it so.

It is very evident why no one in governments worldwide face the truth about these debts. Most foreign governments are counting on the USA to continue our role as global ¨policeman¨ and caretaker. All you have to do is look at the imbalances of contributions to most global project funds or the United Nations and you see this historical assumption that somehow the USA has an inexhaustible level of wealth to spread out across the rest of the world. Most Americans have gone down this road willingly from a sense of national ego to support all these wars and in-clandestine funds. We have been arming so many despot governments throughout the world who promise to bring the peace or support OUR causes, but almost always end up using our guns against their own people or train them back on Americans at some point. Our Department of National Defense has truly become a department of aggressive OFFENCE. This has to stop. We can`t afford it and we don´t need it.

So...some people say...I am proposing an isolationist agenda for my country...and I am WASTING my vote when I vote for anything other than Republican or Democrat. I strongly disagree with those assertions. I am simply suggesting we revolutionize the way we interact with other countries of the world. Instead of trying to outperform the rest of the world in arms production or beating everyone to Mars...we should be totally focused on retooling our country and population for ECONOMIC warfare. We should become the most aggressive and polished country for promoting goods and services that no one else has...at least on our scale. Our country still has riches we are not tapping. We have oil reserves bigger than the Saudis, and yet we keep buying THEIR oil at hugely inflated prices determined by a consortium of our enemies. We have allowed our government backed by big oil money to convince us we have no other choice...and they use any little excuse like a two day Hurricane we had a couple weeks ago to inflate the gasoline prices ANOTHER 18 cents overnight. And we Americans just keep coming back accepting all this drivel.

The reason I restate these issues is because NO ONE ELSE in these party elections are talking about these issues. They want the conversation to be about religion, abortion, or whether a President smokes and what he smokes. These people are not discussing or coming up with ideas for the major issues...and the electorate continues to just go along with the BS. Meanwhile, less and less of the American public are involved in the political process because it is so manipulated and they don't believe in it anymore. It has gotten to where the political comedians cover the issues better than the candidates or regular news agencies do. They seem to be the only ones allowed to really speak the truth.

The only hope I have for our system is that one day average Americans will rise up and start voting their CONSCIENCE. When we start voting for leaders instead of party liners...when we start voting based on our pocketbooks instead of lifestyles of the rich and famous...when we start studying for ourselves the real issues and having an opinion on them...THAT is when our country might have a chance to turn things around. I just fear that it may be too late. The horses are out of the corral...and very few of us are out chasing them down or trying to bring order to the situation. It does seem quite easier to escape and look at this as ¨every man for himself¨. At the end of the day, we each need to listen to our own consciences...while we still have one that hasn't been drowned out by the hype and misdirection of today´s media manipulated by insincere politicos.

I challenge everyone to do their own thinking and research before voting this November. The life and freedom you save...may be your own.