Election Worries

I have to be completely honest. I'm scared stiff about what might happen on Tuesday.

The US presidential race is so dang close, and there's a heck of a lot at stake. I see it as a contest of the battle of the "could be better" candidate and the "My GOD NO!" candidate.

The United States has, in a lot of ways, lost its way over the years. We have a massive, bloated government, with its fingers in every pie imaginable, while we provide outlandish socialistic benefits to our citizens that essentially make them slaves to whichever party is able to scare them the most with threats of losing the "entitlement."Worse, we have our fingers in every international pie available. The US shouldn't be the international policeman, but at the same time, we shouldn't be afraid of what the international community thinks of us. Hell, most countries are just plain jealous of us. The animosity comes from that as much as anything else.

So, on one side, we have Bush, the "conservative" who is only sort of conservative, who's seen rampant government spending on his watch, without any vetoes to stop it. Deficit spending is out of control, and his power to rein in congressional excesses has been utterly wasted. Government is growing bigger by the day and taxpayer money is being wasted and a horrendous scale, despite tax-cuts that DID help the middle class. He's a strong leader who means what he says, and does what he says he'll do, but is seen by some as unable to change his mind.

They claim he's responsible for the "rotten economy," which actually isn't ailing that badly at all, and had its roots in a time before he even became president. They say he lied, diverted the way from Bin Laden to Iraq, though the truth may be that it was more a clever ploy to create a true "front" in the war on terrorism, and force the terrorists to put resources on the ground in a country not our own, where we can more easily deal with them. Of course, few think of this possibility, and fewer still have the stomach to put up with the 1000 soldiers that have died since Iraq started (as opposed to Vietnam which lasted far longer and killed tens of thousands more.)

The Military, by a large margin love and support Bush, because, by and large, he supports them. He opposes the left wing judicial activism that uses non-law based judicial rulings to circumvent the people's voted representatives from making the laws through constitutional means. He supports tort reform to save healthcare because 150,000 a year for malpractice insurance is driving many doctors out of business.

He is Pro-life, pro-traditional marriage and detested by folks who stand on the other side of those issues.

On the other side, we have Kerry, the winner of three purple hearts and a silver star, who's military record is filled with inconsistencies and things that make military folks raise their eyebrows in suspicion. He's an antiwar protestor who allied himself with proven liars masquerading as soldiers they never were, who met with the enemy while still wearing his uniform, and tarnished the reputations of thousands his fellow solders, and yet, not once apologized for it.

His senate record is dismal on national defense, and yet, he wants to lead a military that doesn't trust him, and whom he voted against supporting at any chance he had. The military, by a huge margin, does not like Kerry because they know full well his history, and are afraid of what he'll do to them. Worse, he claims he will find more allies to fight in Iraq, and yet, those we do have are denigrated in the very same sentence for not doing enough.

He says he'll cut taxes for the middle class and raise it for the wealthy, and yet his wife who is one of the wealthiest people in the country pays a pittance on her own returns, sheltered by tax loopholes that Kerry supports. Meanwhile, he has voted against nearly every effort to lower taxes. A former lawyer with a trial attorney as a running mate, he opposes tort reform and claims to have a solution for the healthcare crises, and yet, his solution has led to rationing and poor healthcare everywhere else it's been tried.

Kerry is supported by ultra liberals and despised by pro-lifers and the religious right who see him as one of the most liberal and anti-traditional values senators in the country.

I know who I'm voting for. Its based on my own values, and on the base fact that I know what's at stake here. Iraq cannot fail. It cannot be let to be come a civil war zone by an ineffectual president who will try to set arbitrary dates (like he advocated in Vietnam) that only give the Terrorists a date on which to make their biggest counter offensive.

I cannot support a man who promises to appoint only pro abortion judges to the bench, rather than appointing men and women who will read the law and rule according to what the law SAYS rather than their own opinion.

I cannot support a man who denigrated the brave actions of our military by using generalized terms like Baby-killers to label them, and yet 30 years later tries to portray himself as a war hero, while his entire former chain of command opposes him and view him as a lying opportunist.

I cannot support a man who uses race baiting terms like Jim Crow to scare people, who truly have nothing to fear into voting for him.

Kerry has no integrity. Bush is not my favorite president, and I think he's failed in a lot of places, but he'll get my vote because if John Kerry becomes president, I'm deeply afraid for the future of this country.