I BELIEVE the strength of our nation lies with the individual and that each person’s freedom, ability, and opportunity, must be responsibly honored and protected.

I BELIEVE in equal rights, justice, and opportunity for all, regardless of race, religion, creed, sex, age, or disability.

I BELIEVE free enterprise and individual initiative have brought this nation opportunity, economic growth, and prosperity.

I BELIEVE government must practice fiscal responsibility and allow individuals to keep more of the money they earn.

I BELIEVE the proper, Constitutional, role of government is to provide the people only those critical functions that cannot be performed by individuals or private organizations and that the best government is the government which governs least.

I BELIEVE the most effective, responsible, and responsive government is government closest to the people.

I BELIEVE Americans must retain the principles that have made us strong while developing new and innovative ideas to proactively meet the challenges of changing times.

I BELIEVE Americans value, and should preserve our national strength and pride while working to extend peace, freedom, and human rights throughout the world.

I BELIEVED of the two national parties, the Republican Party represents Constitutional principles and was the best vehicle for translating these ideals into positive and successful functions of government.

This is why I re-registered as an Independent:

She looks a little like Cheney in this picture

For the last 29 or so years the Republicans have become the party of “family values” and have counted on the religious right for the bulk of their votes.  Well, this is a good strategy for getting votes, but it keeps the party from performing its mission which is supposed to be limited government intervention, lots of personal freedom and an atmosphere that promotes business.  But no more.  The Republicans brought us the “Patriot Act” which circumvents our constitution, huge debts which naturally the Democrats think can only be cured with equal debts for their causes, and more “Big Brother” attitude than I personally can handle.  Government is about doing the things that the people can’t do on their own…build roads, keep a standing army and defending our borders.  Now I may be wrong but the last time I checked Canada and Mexico weren’t amassing troops on our borders so this should be a pretty easy job…just build some friggin infrastructure, make sure the American people aren’t getting hosed by the government, promote a climate in which both large and small business’s can flourish and then get out of our way.

That used to be the deal, but now the deal has changed.  It’s family values (to get big voting blocks), its starting wars for the military industrial complex when a few key troops could do the job for almost free, and its about limiting our freedoms so the giant corporations can get what they want.  Let me ask you:  Do you have car insurance?  Shouldn’t that be optional?  It is not optional and a lobbying group made damn sure you had to buy it.  Every big business in the world wants part of your paycheck.  Some will spend more money making Washington give it to them than others.  We’ve all heard that “no fault” insurance states pay more for coverage than states that have mandatory insurance laws.  That’s because insurance is a numbers game.  Personally, I would rather insure myself and my ability to dodge the idiots on the road than not, and if they crash and burn the financial responsibility is on them…but that doesn’t translate into free money for the insurance companies.  They actually have to do their jobs when it comes to no fault insurance.  Nuff about that.

Lets talk about abortion for a minute.  For it or against it, nearly everyone has an opinion and that opinion is based on their religious values.  The key part of this is “when does a fetus become human, or have a soul”?  That of course will never be known, but it does bring up the equal and opposite question of people who are dying.  Lets assume we all have souls (sorry to you athiests out here, I’m keeping it simple) and you are going to have an operation, or you are dying of cancer or some other tragic disease.  The doctor tells you that during the operation or final days of your disease that if you die that he can revive you but you will be on life support and pretty much be a veggie with no awareness at all for maybe a couple of extra days before you die anyway.  Do you have him keep reviving you even though it does you personally no good, or do you sign a DNR (do not reccusitate) order? Almost everyone would pick a DNR if they knew they were going to be on life support and have no awareness of the world around them because you are just prolonging your family’s and possibly your own pain.  But for this discussion we assumed you had a soul, so is that murder or suicide?  People live and people die – it’s the way life works.

So for the abortion part of this scenario:  Let us say that some teenagers or anyone else, really,  had sex and in a couple of days found out the female was pregnant.  The only way you can even begin to tell me it is wrong is if you believe that God assigns and installs a soul the instant a sperm drills its way into the egg.  The morning after pill is not wrong unless you believe that.  My test for abortion is this:  If the fetus can’t survive outside the womb without being on life support and in an incubator you are probably in the clear.  In my opinion God is a conservative and isn’t going to throw souls away on a fetus until they have a chance of survival.  Do you think God hates the birds and fish that eat 90% of all baby turtles that are born and heading towards the sea?  Life is tough and sometimes having a baby makes it tougher.

Late term abortion is a different story for me.  I once refused to do business with a Doctor who bragged that he was the only Physician in the state who would do an abortion in the third trimester.  He later was exposed for disposing of aborted fetus’s in the field behind his office.  Abortion is a tough issue to tackle, especially for guys because we can’t have one, but the main point from all of this is that it is a moral issue and has nothing to do with what government is supposed to be about.

The religion I grew up in, Southern Baptists, told me that all Jew, Catholics, Muslims and danged near everyone else was going to Hell because they weren’t “immersed in water”, or didn’t worship God they way they did.  This later became my test for a cult:  “If your religion believes that everyone who doesn’t believe as they do is going to Hell then you are in a cult”.

Believe how you want to believe, I don’t care, but keep it out of politics!  The founders of our country were pretty clear about the seperation of church and state and it is one of the most important tenets of our form of government.  How would you like it if a snake handling, head shrinking, voodoo practicing, animal sacrificing religion got to tell you how to run your life because they were in the political majority?  I’ll tell you how you would like it.  You wouldn’t like it one little bit.  “But my religion is the right one” you whine, we have been established for x amount of years and have x amount of members…we are a majority.  Ya, maybe you are a majority religion but you don’t have the right to tell the non snake handling, head shrinking, voodoo practicing, animal sacrificing people how to live.  Politics is about governing a country and religion is about how you choose to run your life, but not mine.  I personally find it funny that you even think you have the right to tell me how to live.  We have laws that govern much of the way we live already, why do you get to overstep those carefully plotted bounds?  You don’t.  Give up.  Live your life the way you want, teach your children that it’s ok to stick a pin in a shrunken snakes head to cause pain to an enemy if you want to, but get out of our collective faces.  Not everyone believes the same way, and that is the point.

So then, now that I have probably pissed everyone in the country off, how do we fix the Republican party?  Well, for starters we throw the religious angle out the window.  Then we set up clear rules that say your business can’t intentionally screw anyone over or trick or force them into buying your product.  Then we quit messing with other people’s lives.  If the Islamic religion believes that you can’t draw a picture of Allah or Mohammad that is well and good for them, but they don’t get to tell me how to live.  If they live like good citizens and care about the people of the world and generally garner my respect, I probably won’t draw a picture they don’t like because I respect them, not because I think they will come blow me up if I do.  Which in fact, I have known many many Islamic people in my life and they were almost all good people who love freedom and business and generally respect the values of this country.  The problem with all religion is the extremists who will not stop until they have made everyone believe the way they do, or killed all the opposition.  Most religious people live a life that other people respect, but the extremists are the squeaky wheel.  They always speak up out of turn and want to tell you how to live.  Regular people are content to live their lives in their own way and lead by example, not force.

So, Republicans.  Give up on the moral majority and their one sided issues.  Quit letting big business tell you what to do.  Don’t start wars because your political contributors will benefit from them.  Pull our armies back to our borders in case those pesky Canadians and Mexicans decide to gang up on us.  Stop trying to tell the rest of the world how to live.  Listen to the regular people who won’t speak up unless asked to.  Once again be the party that promotes freedom, personal responsibility and financial conservatism.  If you are going to claim to be the party of family values then don’t hire illegal aliens to work for you, don’t cheat on your wife/husband, and generally try to live so that people will respect you…you are going to get caught otherwise…Do the right thing even when no one is looking, and for the love of God put the snake handling, head shrinking, voodoo practicing, animal sacrificers on the back burner where they belong.

If I have made you mad with this post then you may have a personal problem and need therapy.  If I have made you so mad that you decided to retaliate against me with violence you should know that the address that ICANN has listed for this website is not even close to where I live, and that if you some how get lucky and do find out where I live I own guns, am a very very good shot, and I will kill you.

Promote a Free America people!

I have a friend who sends me an average of five emails a day which bash Obama and/or Democrats.  These emails may contain racial slurs and most certainly exploit Internet “facts” which are of dubious quality at the least.  To wit I state the following actual facts, followed by my opinions.

(1)  Eight Trillion dollars of our Eleven trillion dollar national debt was incurred during a Republican Presidency.  That is a fact.

(2)  Barack Obama is now the President of the United States.  It is un-American not to give him a chance.

(3)  He’s half black and half white.  Do you think it makes any difference?  If you do then please remove me from your email list.

(4) The Mudblogger is pro-gun.  I own guns and if you don’t want me to shoot you then don’t break into my house.  Otherwise, you are probably safe.

(5) The Mudblogger is a fiscal conservative.  I am not a Reagan era conservative because I don’t care what your religion is and I don’t want to tell you how to live your life.  This country was founded on religious freedom so get with the program!

(6) Abortion is a moral issue and has nothing to do with providing interstate highways, keeping a standing army or protecting our borders.  If you are against abortion then raise your children to be against it, go to churches that are against it, but don’t presume you have the right or authority to tell women what they can do with their bodies.

(7)  This country was founded on freedom.  Just because I am a Republican do not assume I think like you do.

(8) In fact, assume that I do not think like you because I do not subscribe to any particular economic or religious or social theory.  I make up my own mind depending on the facts.  For your information facts are dates, names, places and information which is otherwise indisputable.

(9) I support your right to have your own opinion and am ready to fight to the death to support that right.  If you can’t return the favor then I don’t want to hear your opinions.

(10) Everytime you send an email whose “facts” are made up, you lose 100 points on my ten point scale.  Check your facts or remove your “forward” button.

(11) Reagan was not God.  He was an actor who courted the religious right in order to win an election.  That simple act destroyed the true principle of the Republican party and sidetracked us from the issues that matter.  Until Reagan was elected the Republicans stood for small government, low taxes, capitalism and freedom.

(12) Trickle down is just a made up economic philosophy which justifies giving money to the rich before you get yours.  Tell me how the scraps from the rich is supposed to help me again?

(13)  George Bush was not a bad president, he just had bad information when he made his calls.  How many billions would this country not owe the Chinese if we had sent in sniper teams instead of thousands of soldiers?

(14) President Bill Clinton was a fiscal conservative.  Under his reign the national debt was flat and our trade deficit was about even.  Under George Bush II we spent more money than all other presidents combined from the beginning of this country, tell me again how conservative Republicans are?

(15) Unless the Republicans are willing to admit that Democrats are the new fiscal conservatives they had better start listening to guys like Ron Paul and get back to their roots or risk being irrelevant.  Trickle down?  Let’s try trickle up for a while…that is the way capitalism started.  Trickle down is a ruse, a scam.  Check out Austrian economic theory if you want to see how economics really works in a non Socialist country, but be prepared to be bored…it’s all facts and no pictures of our president acting like a monkey.

(16) It is time to take the “partisan” out of politics.  Don’t let the political parties, shock jocks like Rush Limbaugh or individual politicians manipulate you, think for yourself.  If it doesn’t make sense to you then it is probably a smokescreen so that someone else can get what they want at your expense.  My entire life I have heard the phrase “Revolution at the ballot box”, “Revolution at the ballot box”, “Revolution at the ballot box”.  We either get this right, right now or it is time for your old fashioned revolution, the kind with angry citizens and guns.  Do you really think that it takes your entire lifetime to change the way our government works?  That is a ruse which assures that we will never have freedom, never see liberty and never achieve a true Democracy.  Look past the BS people.

(17)  Listen to people you don’t agree with, sometimes they are spot on!  If you think you are the only person with the answers, or that the philosophy you subscribe to is the only correct one then you are selling yourself and your country short. Don’t be an idiot, keep an open mind and do the math.