Why I'm Voting and Why I'm Voting for Mitt

(alternate title: This is my Blog and I Suppose I Can Write About What's Important to Me)

Before 2007, I didn't think Christians should use their Christian morality in the voting booth because I thought it would be unfair. But then I learned that wasn't true, and here's why I believe it isn't:

1. Every single law, right down to funding the public library, is based on a morality. Every law says we should do X and we shouldn't do Y. Welfare is based on the morality that we should help those in need. Banning super-sized sodas is based on the morality that we have to help the obese not be so obese - and further, that obesity is bad. If you don't vote based on your Christian morality, which by definition, we as Christians believe is the correct one - another morality will win out.

2. There are many examples, in both Old and New Testaments, of the importance God places on politics. Leviticus is an obvious example, but I like the New Testament example of John the Baptist confronting King Herod to tell him he was doing wrong. (See Mark 6.) Clearly we are not meant to separate ourselves from society to such an extent that we give ourselves no say in our culture's direction.

3. Jesus said to give to Caesar what is Caesar's. In our case, our 'Caesar' is a democracy - which demands participation.

4. Part of believing God is all Good is believing that God's will is what's best for us. That's why I can, with confidence and the utmost of compassion, vote that His will be done in our society.

Now that I believe I should vote, here's a few reasons why I'm voting for Mitt Romney.

1. The Economy
     I don't own a small business or a business of any size, actually, but I know things are not going well. They are not better than they were 4 years ago. I have a few key points here. The first is that in February of 2009, President Obama told Matt Lauer that if he didn't turn the economy around in 3 years, he would be a one-term president. That speaks for itself. (Here's the video.)

    Secondly, I do happen to work in the health insurance world in HR for a private company, and I can tell you firsthand how unbelievably, infuriatingly CRIPPLING Obamacare has already been. Companies need legal teams just to give them an idea of what the heck this behemoth is. Insurance rates have already increased because insurance companies are preparing for a mass exodus coming down the pike, which isn't good for anyone. This thing is an economic nightmare.

  Third, Mitt Romney has a very successful, very impressive economic record. I know we're inexplicably in the business now of finding economically successful people to be morally inferior (a bit judgmental, no?) but I'm not on that train. We can't hold "small businesses" to be of the highest moral fiber and then call a big businesses a monster. Big businesses are small businesses that grew big. That's just physics. Or chemistry? I haven't taken science since high school.

  Either way, economic and business savvy play a role in this election - a lot larger of a role than in the past, even. Mitt Romney has been successful in those areas. Obama didn't have business experience before his presidency and he most certainly has failed in this area since he took office.

2. Foreign Affairs/Policy
   The handling of the situation in Libya has made Obama impeachable. President Obama refused requests for additional security to a Middle Eastern embassy - on 9/11.  Then, when the embassy was attacked, and he knew it was an attack, he spent two weeks pretending it was a spontaneous mob reacting to a video that some "vile" American made (but "Piss Christ" deserves National Endowment money?). Then he doubled-back and said it was an attack. Now we know that the administration had real-time intelligence of the attack as it was going on, and someone denied military support. 4 Americans were killed, including our ambassador. Obama went to Las Vegas the next day to campaign. This reads like a very bad, very tasteless crime novel, doesn't it? If only it were fiction.
   Additionally, President Obama's unwillingness to call terrorism terrorism and to recognize the threat of Islam is just embarrassing and useless. If the overwhelming majority of recent terrorist attacks were committed by Islamic jihadists, supposing that the next attack is likely to be committed by a Muslim is not racial profiling, it's actual profiling. (To steal a line from Saul in Homeland. XOXO Saul call me.) It's statistical intelligence. The Muslim threat is real and we need a President who acknowledges it, or I'm afraid we'll ignore it. To our needless peril.

  One more caveat - investigating why or how or when we offended terrorists is the most backwards foreign policy stance I've ever had the misfortune of witnessing. Since when do we assign logic to insane, hateful, violent people? 

3. Abortion
  If fetuses weren't human, I'd be pro-choice, but with hesitation and sadness, because I believe (and have seen) that abortion is harmful to women. But fetuses are human. When two humans reproduce, they don't produce a lizard or a spider or a frog, they produce a human. Developing fetuses differ from born human beings in only 4 ways: Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency. Born humans also differ from each other in these four ways, yet we don't call someone who is small or who has a less-developed brain than someone older than them "less human." There is no difference between a fetus and a born human that doesn't fit into these categories.

  If it's a human, our society has already made the decision on whether it's legal to kill it. It's not.

  If it's a human, this is genocide.

  If this is genocide, and I don't vote with this in mind - well, I don't want to be that type of person.

  The fact is, the next pres. is most likely going to appoint 2-3 Supreme Court Justices. That's where abortion comes into play.

4. Empowering those in poverty
  In college, Aaron and I volunteered at a homeless shelter/community outreach program called Good Works. Good Works took a radical approach to the problem of homelessness, and it's changed my outlook permanently. We need to care for the afflicted, and caring for them means empowering them. Coming alongside them, helping them through their emergency, and equipping them with tools to dig their way out. We don't empower those struggling with poverty by giving them two years of unemployment benefits. We don't empower people with handouts.  That degrades people; it stomps on their dignity. Moreover, it empowers people who want to take advantage of the system.

  However, sometimes handouts are necessary - food, shelter, money, clothing, medicine, etc. That's where we come in - the church, neighbors, the proverbial WE. Getting less take-home pay because the government thinks it can help the poor better than I can is a real source of high blood pressure for me. And probably the reason I eat so much chocolate. Let me keep my money, and I'll show you how much farther it can go.

  I know not everybody helps like they should. But we were founded as a country that said it would be home to both responsible citizens and lazy assholes, and that's our identity, for better or worse. Giving that up would cost much more than it would 'help.'  The very loveliness and essence of giving is destroyed when it's forced - and it's absolutely perverted when it's forced by an embarassingly incompetent government.

5. Our Leader's Attitude
  Obama thinks he's smarter than you. He thinks (pretends to think) that he is better at loving people than you. He thinks he's cooler than you and that he can handle your money and your sexual life and your healthcare better than you can. This is not how leaders lead. This is how cult masters manipulate. I'm tired of it and I'm embarrassed of him.

Ok.

Talk to me.