This week has been crazy! So I'm using my blog to unload my thoughts about this election.
Let's start with a timeline. Years ago, I did not vote for Mitt Romney. I love Ron Paul. I love his foreign policy, I love his abortion stance, I love his personality and how down to Earth he is. He is so true to his principles. I just really like the guy.
So I voted for Ron Paul. I knew Mitt was a good family man. I think he would have made a great president. But I wanted to cast my vote with a candidate that was more closely aligned with my views. Its a two party system so I knew that my vote wasn't going to really change anything. My state would still vote for Mitt. And they did. But I hoped that my support of libertarian ideals would somehow influence future elections.
President Obama won the election. I think Obama seemed like a nice guy. Not someone I share political views with. But I wasn't an Obama basher.
In the last 8 years, things have changed with Obama as president. My health insurance now costs $9000 more per year. I'm grateful that this didn't happen years ago when we were struggling financially, because I honestly don't know what we would have done. I probably would have cried a lot. Back then I would cry when I got a $50 ticket, and a $9000 extra cost would have changed a lot of things for us. I feel bad for our friends who are struggling to pay their premiums.
Some other things have changed also. I was horrified by the governor of California making vaccines mandated. Kids who don't get the mandated vaccines have no other option but being homeschooled. That made me mad as hell. I don't swear, but I will here because it is exactly how I felt. We KNOW that Hep B does absolutely nothing for children born to mothers who don't have the disease. We KNOW the vaccine loses efficacy within 10 years of being administered. There is no threat to other children for my kids not getting this vaccine. Yet if we still lived in California, we would be required to. That makes me really mad. Its not right. I am against the state deciding what has to be injected into my body. It triggers all the feelings of helplessness and anger I had when Miles got ITP from his MMR injection. I believe in transparency and informed consent. I believe in tracking reactions so we can see what kind of results we are getting from an immunization in a broader scope than just whether the disease was affected. I believe that trading autoimmune diseases for immunity to measles is a bad deal--which is what happened to Miles.
I care about our foreign policy. I was encouraged by Obamas vow to get us out of war. My liberal friends were so sick of war and so unhappy with the soldiers that were being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. I agreed with their disgust. And then Obama bombed Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Iraq and Syria. And the peace loving liberals looked the other way. It seems the Libertarians were the only ones taking note. That seemed hypocritical and false to me.
Abortion is another complicated issue for me. I learned what partial birth abortion was when Elise was a newborn and the internet was new to me. I sat at my desk in my apartment with my sweet baby on my knees and cried as I read what it really is. And the idea that there are people advocating for this using endless euphemisms and excuses really bothers me. I will NEVER buy into the idea that the choice to kill your own child furthers the cause of women. We have endless reproductive choices. We have lots and lots of options. And I believe in keeping those birth control options accessible. I will concede to keep the emergency contraceptives available. You can take an abortion pill up to 10 weeks gestation. Why is that not enough for some people? We have plenty of choices, we do not need partial birth abortion and D&C options. Its barbaric. Disabled babies are not disposable. It is morally reprehensible to me that someone would choose to kill a baby because the baby was not perfect. Sorry that sounds like something Hitler would do. If the mothers life is in jeopardy, and a few of my friends have been in this situation, the hospital will deliver early. One of my friends had cancer when she was pregnant and went through chemo. She was advised to abort. She delivered a healthy, perfect baby. To me, the abortion issue is a no brainer. Killing=bad. Adoption=good.
So this brings us to the present day. I never liked Trump. I felt that somehow the world had gone mad. Who were these people that voted for him in the first place? What about Carly Fiorina? What about Ben Carson? There were other options. I honestly felt that the only way the Donald was actually the nominee is because the media wanted him to be. He was given much more time and attention than any other nominee. That sounds like a great way to influence an election. Choose the worst possible candidate to focus on, someone that would be so bad they would be easy to beat. Honestly that was the only way I could figure that Donald Trump ended up on the ticket. Its not hard to come to that conclusion. Bill Clinton reportedly urged him to run. The media gave Donald more than 2 billion dollars in media coverage based on advertising rates. They published 29,019 stories about Trump. I kinda loved that it blew up in their faces.
I mulled over voting for McMullin. (pun intended--just couldn't resist). I hated Trump so much I didn't even care who McMullin was or wasn't. But what made me change my mind was all the encouragement McMullin was getting from the liberals. Who is McMullin anyway? All I cared about was that he was an alternative to Trump. I knew he'd never win. There were people saying Utah was just voting for McMullin because he was LDS. That's not true. He just popped up at the right time and was an alternative to Trump. That's it.
I even considered briefly voting for Hillary. But bottom line with Hillary, all of the things I care about deeply, are things that she is opposed to. I have a ton of issues with her past. Number one, her husband pardoning
Marc Rich on the last day of his presidency. Talk about political favors and the elite buying their way out of everything. The Benghazi scandal was particularly troubling to me. The emails. That bugged me too. What is she hiding? The false charity organization. That just bugged particularly because of the double standard. Questioning Donald Trumps taxes when she herself was using her charity as a tax shelter. I love Wikileaks. Always have, always will. I like TRANSPARENCY and I think we need more of it. I think our elected officials should behave as though everything they do will be known by those who they represent. Behind that little polished, every word carefully chosen, is a real person who needs to be revealed. I don't care about your speeches. They aren't written by you anyway. I want to know what you do when you don't think anyone else is watching.
How could I not vote against someone who will put into play policies I don't want? And more importantly appoint judges that go against what is important to me? Someone pointed out that Bernie supporters were super critical of Hillary, but they were all voting for her anyway when she won the nomination. Even despite the DNC shenanigans. They weren't willing to take a stand and vote 3rd party. But they were encouraging the McMullin supporters. That also seemed self-serving.
On election day, Jared and I discussed what the outcomes would be with our kids. I told them there was no way Trump would win. I really believed that. But when Jared and I went to vote, we sat in the parking lot and talked. And both of us changed our minds and voted for Trump. For all the reasons above. But mostly because there were NO moral options. It was going to be Hilary or Trump. And my vote was not Hilary.
I agree with Ron Paul, "We can't have both open borders and a welfare state." I would pick open borders and have some kind of sponsorship programs or ways people can help get immigrants. I also believe that birthright citizenship should be abolished. I don't like laws that encourage people to have babies they can't afford to take care of. I like that Trump at least recognizes that the current immigration issues need to be addressed. Are we going to build a wall? No. That is ridiculous to me. But I don't blame Mexicans or others for seeking a better life in America. I just want us to figure out a way to get it done legally and in a way that is fair to all of us who are bearing the costs.
In response to the celebrities who said they would move if Trump was elected; Miley Cyrus in particular. Remember the song you were twerking to on live television? You must know the lyrics to Blurred Lines. I read them once. The song was so catchy I wanted to see what it was about. The non-radio version was the most disgusting, most awful rape type language I've ever heard. So Miley, please don't talk to me about how you are morally opposed to Trump's talk about women.
I guess that's a big beef I have with the media. The actresses and actors get on and give their little pitch about women's rights and sexual assault, but then they sing songs glorifying it. And they produce movies that get ratings from violence and assault. We should all learn a thing from Trumps awful video. We need to think twice about the media we listen to and watch and think about how it is influencing abuse and objectification of women.
Back to election day. I was SHOCKED with the results. But I don't think that people voted based on fear and racism. I think that for me, it was all about wanting my politics to have a voice. I'm voting for my party. And the irony of all of this is that those who are so against Donald and his bullying tactics are all on Facebook whining, bullying, and name-calling those who don't agree with them.
I did not vote FOR racism, hate, or any of those things. I know that Donald Trump has said some really stupid things. I don't like him.
This article in the Salt Lake Tribune really angers me. Because we are between a rock and a hard place here. Don't expect me to vote for your candidate if you are not going to court my vote. If I have two corrupt options, I'm going to choose the one that can is more likely to give me what I want. Pick a better alternative next time.
