I started caring about politics when I realized that I was working waaaay too hard just to support people who didn't feel like working. I was 20 years old busting my ass running my own business and working a night job to help out when the business wasn't doing too good, and then it came time to pay taxes. Why do I need to pay so much taxes? I figured it out! It was so my meth addict neighbors with two kids could work just long enough so they would still qualify for the maximum earned-income tax "credit" for them and their two kids. They would tell me how they got a $6,000 "tax refund". I knew they probably didn't earn $6,000 all year, much less paid $6,000 in taxes to get a refund. So, what it amounted to was that I was working extra hard so people who I didn't want to live next to me could use my money to afford to live there and trash up the neighborhood. That's when I started to care about politics, because politicians use MY money to buy votes from these people. They screw the hard working acheivment-oriented people of the world to support deadbeats who will vote for them. When you rob Peter to pay Paul, you can always count on the support of Paul.
Don't get me wrong, I know there are people who are out there who need help, and I am a charitable person. If I personally know of someone who needs help and I can help, I do. But what I don't agree with is the government using it's power to take money from MY family to give to somebody else's family at the point of a gun. As a result, I have become very conservative fiscally. But, I am a social liberal. So, I really don't fit in with the Republicans, because, yes, they preach fiscal conservatism, but they really don't practice it. Also, their social platform doesn't represent my beliefs. I believe that the government should let me keep my money and only tax the citizens of this country to pay for essential government stuff, like roads and schools etc. I also believe that the government shouldn't get in between me and my God (or my lack of a belief in God), and that the government shouldn't make laws regarding what I want to drink, smoke, inhale, snort, inject in MY body. I also believe that the government shouldn't be able to force women to have a baby that they don't want. If abortion is really "wrong" or "immoral", then God will get your ass later if he sees fit. The government should stay out of it, that is unless all those people who protest abortions want to start adopting the thousands of unwanted kids that would result from those women not having access to those abortions. I also believe that the government shouldn't be able to tell two consenting adults what sort of behavior they can engage in or acts they can perform on each other in the privacy of their own home. I also believe that the government has no business telling me that I can't buy a beer on a Sunday or that my kids have to pray in school. In a nut shell, my take on morals is this: You should be free to do whatever you want, just as long as what you are doing isn't depriving someone else of their life, liberty, or property.
So, I guess that makes me a libertarian. I know that a libertarian candidate has a snowball's chances in hell of ever winning the presidency, so every four years I'm faced with a dilemma: Do I vote democrat and satify my liberal social tendencies or do I vote republican to satisfy my conservative fiscal ideas? Usually, I defaul to the fiscal side of things, because me paying more taxes has a more direct and immediate effect on me and my family than their feeble attempts at enforcing their severe morals on me. I'm scared what will happen if whoever we elect allows the Bush tax cuts to expire. The average family will have to pay an extra $1,500 a year in taxes. That's $1,500 we can all use to buy groceries, gas, a vacation, you name it. So, I'm still undecided about who to vote for in November. It's gonna take a lot of thought. But, I'm pretty sure I can't allow myself to vote for Hillary. She scares the hell out of me. Anyway, I think I typed enough. :)
