I know I have not posted in a while and I will get back to posting about travels and all the new things I am doing, but I need to take a minute to talk about Politics and specifically voting.

    I am a registered Democrat, specifically to vote in the Democratic primaries. However, I don’t consider myself a Democrat or Republican. The reason I do not consider myself one or the other is because I try and vote for the person who I think will be the best for the job at hand. The person who I think will do right by the people and this country. The person who I believe is capable of leading and getting others to follow.

    That being said I have become more and more disgusted with politicians, our current presidential administration, and last but not least the american public who continues to vote mostly along party lines and on emotional issues instead of reading, listening, and thinking before making a decision on who they think will be the BEST person for the job at hand. The sad fact is that only about 30% or less of the United States population votes. If we were in school that is a failing grade.

    During our current administrations run for the last 7 1/2 years, we bankrupted the nation, destroyed our standing in the world, weakened our currency to a point that I have never seen in my lifetime, and dishonored our military soldiers by sacrificing their lives for an ego of a President and the wallets of his friends. I say “we” because it was WE as a nation who voted in this President and his policies, twice...

    I believe we need a leader that brings people together and listens to the population and his/her advisors around him/her rather than firing anyone who disagrees and refusing to admit when he/she has made a mistake. I believe we need a leader that focuses on REAL issues rather than emotional ones. If you don’t know the difference I will clarify...REAL ISSUES - National Security, Alternative Energy (which can be put under National Security since that is our biggest dependency), Health Care, the Economy, Foreign Relations, etc. Emotional Issues - Religion, Gender, Race, Abortion, Party Politics, and so on. The REAL ISSUES are the ones that matter in running a country and doing what is right for the people who reside in said country. The EMOTIONAL ISSUES are the ones that give us presidents like the one we have, they give us dirty politics, and stupid sound bites that we have to listen to every time we turn on a “news” station, they give us the lowest common denominator.

    What I cannot understand about Dirty Politics is that if I made a commercial, or published an article telling a lie or even exaggerating about another person I could be sued, but if I am a politician and I do the very same thing it is called “campaigning” and I am not held accountable for anything. I’m fed up with the American population eating up the sound bites and repeating them back verbatim without forming their own opinion on a candidate and using false information to make a candidate fit their reasoning.

    I want to urge anyone and everyone to vote if you are eligible. It is a right we as Americans have, and we should honor those who have died to give us this right by exercising it responsibly. What kills me is how lazy people can be when voting really couldn’t be easier. Most people on this planet would and do kill and die for the rights we don’t use because we are too busy watching what Paris Hilton will do next. I really don’t care who you vote for, as long as you can answer something other than “Because I’m a Democrat” or “Because I’m a Republican” or “Because I just did not want (insert Politician’s name here) to win.” Use that brain that God, or Allah, or Buddha, or Ganesh, or your Parents gave you and think about the REAL issues that we are faced with and make an intelligent decision on who the BEST person you feel is right to bring our country back to greatness and to unite not only our own people but the rest of the world with us.