I’m Voting For Liberty In November

It’s been a while since I poured you all a morning cuppa. Despite being motivated a few times to rant about something, I have let myself get distracted. But, I’m on a roll, today, so when I saw the following post, I was motivated to add my two cents (for what it’s worth).

TruthNews.us: FISA: Why I Can No Longer Vote for Barack Obama
Barack Obama lost my vote today. I was never a rah-rah supporter, yet prior to the FISA bill vote today, I believed that I could suck it up and vote for whoever ended up being the eventual Democratic Party nominee. For the first time in my adult life, I’m faced with the unhappy prospect of staying home on November 4th.

If I had written the above linked post, I would have named it “Why I Can No Longer Vote For A Democrat or a Republican”.

It’s just this kind of thing (letting the FISA bill pass) that is a regular reminder to me that our legislators, when given the chance, rarely, if ever do the right thing (unless some lobbyist is “paying” them to do so). This past year has been more apparent than ever that Democrats are just as guilty of bending over as many Democratic supporters have been accusing the Republicans of being.

When a constitutional scholar, such as Barack Obama, cannot be bothered to vote against a law that is blatantly unconstitutional, that is just another sign to me that our politicians do not work for “We, the people”.

The ultimate kick in the teeth is that everybody’s favorite Democrat-to-hate, Hilary Clinton, voted against it (head meet desk)!

More from the link:

Today, Barack Obama shed his skin; the skin that enticed so many people into believing that he did, in fact, support the United States Constitution, and in particular, the fourth amendment to same.

Why has he lost my vote? Quite simply: trust. If I can’t trust a self-described constitutional scholar to defend basic constitutional principles, even with a vote on the losing side of a constitutional issue, how can I trust him with (for example) future Supreme Court nominations? After today, I can’t.

Even though the FISA bill would have passed without Obama’s vote, it seems to me, if he wanted to prove that he was a REAL candidate for change, he would have voted AGAINST it, on principle alone (not to mention all his supporters who expressed their distaste for his stance on the bill on his very own campaign website). That might have made me warm up to him a little more.

Instead, this latest vote just gave me one more reason not to cast my vote for him. If I can’t trust him while he is on the road to the presidency, why would I give him the reins to my prized horses? Sure, he might take good care of my mares for a while, but how long before he sells them to the highest bidder with some pitiful excuse about how he would have fought harder to keep them for me, but the amendments that would have kept them in a decent stall, failed, and he couldn’t think of anything else to do, so he sold them anyway.

One last thing:

I know that Obama’s FISA vote won’t mean a thing to his hard core supporters. They’ll make excuses the same way that George W. Bush’s sycophants make excuses for him. “Oh, he had to vote this way, or the GOP would paint him as soft on national security.”

NEWSFLASH: THE GOP IS GOING TO USE THAT PAINTBRUSH ANYWAY.

The FISA vote today made absolutely no difference in the GOP’s “weak on terror” mantra. That’s why it’s so hard to fathom Obama’s yea vote on the FISA bill. In fact, the GOP is already casting him as a flip-flopper on the issue: He was against warrentless wiretapping before he was for it. He was against telecom immunity before he was for it. So where does Barack Obama really stand?

The Republicans may be jerks, but Democrats seem to be spineless twits when it comes to voting for/against things that really matter to the American people. Of course, when it comes to voting for/against something that the lobbyists want, we can always count on both parties to bend over and kiss our rights “good-bye”.

With that in mind, and with the recent capitulation of the Democrats who were voted into office with very little problem, last election, there is nothing anybody can say to me to convince me that a vote “for” a Democratic candidate is any better than a vote for a Republican candidate. They are both equally guilty of sending our rights down the crapper. Under Bill Clinton, we got “welfare reform” that has put millions of poor families out on the street with help because their “right” to benefits ran out. We got, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” which is proving to be a thorn in the military’s side as they attempt to retain soldiers to fight GWBs wars. We also got “The Defense of Marriage Act” which, in one fell swoop took away the rights of gay men and women to ever marry and made it harder for them to fight for the right. (No need to mention Waco or Elian). All these things happened under a Democratic president.

Thanks to the events of September 11, 2001 and everybody’s least favorite Republican, George W Bush, all of the above issues were made worse. The poor economy means that “welfare reform” policies are going to hurt even more. DADT, will force more commanders to discharge gay soldiers during a time of long-term war(s), when we need every able bodied volunteer, regardless of sexual orientation. DOMA is being constantly addressed, all over the country (every election cycle, all over the country, state versions of DOMA are being put on the ballot to be laced into state constitutions in an attempt to make it permanent). Add “sayonara habeas corpus” and “howdy illegal wiretaps” (no need to mention crappy administration lackeys and federal contractors feeding at the trough without fear of recrimination). The Republicans claimed they would bring credibility and trust back to the White House (no thanks to Bill and Monica) and they took Clinton’s ball, ran with it, and then took the goal posts and hid them.

I have a black cat, named, Liberty. I think this year, instead of voting for Evil or Lesser Evil, I’ll vote for “Liberty” for the first time. It won’t do a damn bit of good, of course, but neither will my vote for a Democrat or a Republican.

_{(Crossposted…)}