Boxoffrogs

Who does the boxoffrogs would make a good leader for the United States? This is a muddled question which has much to do with choosing the lesser of two evils. This is because of a two party system which has entrenched itself in American politics. It is my opinion that a great leader would not be beholden to any party line and have his loyalty tied to the good of the country and not to himself. The irony is that these days a potential leader for the United States (or any “free” modern nation) has to have deep enough pockets to influence the media for a favorable reception by the citizenry. Therefore there is already a conflict of interest set in place because if the media isn’t bought, then the citizenry isn’t sold.



The media makes its money by selling us a bunch of sh**t that we don’t need through paid commercial endorsements for products. It has even gotten to the point that the media will actively display certain products in their programming for a price. Ever notice how that label on the Coke can is always facing the camera? So is it such a difficult leap in this day of 24 hour news networks that any “fair and balanced” coverage (positive or negative) would be influenced by a bit of compensation, be it money or favors?



I would imagine we are in a new world of corporate governance where the common people are secondary in the choices being made. This requires two seemingly polarizing political powers that can feed off one another’s diverse positions. These two polarizing positions would then be able to hold the lion share of any political capital and garner financial support from both the population and corporations depending on which side of the issue at hand was bought into. There is no political or economic gain for the media if there aren’t two opposing parties, and with this dynamic any fringe third party gets pretty much shut out of any coverage and funding. If the media doesn’t sell it to the people then there is no one to buy it.



Based on this concept, one therefore must throw in on a candidate from one of two parties in the United States. This is because a true grass roots initiative can not carry a candidate all the way to Election Day…yet. The United States remains too diverse and self serving for a TRUE independent to emerge and garner widespread support. Therefore unless you want to throw your vote away you currently have two choices, until we crack the system. The choices are to vote Democrat or Republican.

There are the Democrats whose principals include:
Choice is a fundamental, constitutional right.
Support affirmative action to redress discrimination.
End corporate welfare.
The U.S. cannot drill its way to energy independence.
Family is the center of American life.
Forward Engagement must guide proactive foreign policy.
Work to close gap between richest and poorest nations.
Strengthen gun control to reduce violence.
Every American should have affordable health insurance.
Encourage military careers with better pay & benefits.
A path for undocumented aliens to earn citizenship.
Change tax system to not encourage shipping jobs overseas.
New vision for America: strong at home, respected abroad.
Appoint judges committed to Constitutional rights.
Oppose privatization of Social Security (the U.S. pension system) and oppose raising retirement age.
Cut taxes for middle class, not the wealthy.
Cut taxes for working families, not richest 1%.
Every home should have Internet access.
Put science ahead of ideology in research and policymaking.
Raise Earned Income Tax Credit & minimum wage to $7 USD an hour & expand middle class.
More complete list at http://www.ontheissues.org/Democratic_Party.htm

There are the Republicans whose principals include:
Ban abortion with Constitutional amendment.
Lack of any recorded issue on U.S. Federal Budget and Economy. Have to look at each candidate for their spin.
Homosexuality is incompatible with military service.
Constitutional Amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Women exempt from combat.
Death penalty is an effective deterrent.
Best way to deter crime is to enforce existing laws.
Jail time and school drug testing deters drug use.
Limit role of federal government in education.
Achievement is basis for access to college.
No Kyoto Treaty, no mandatory carbon emission controls.
Private property ownership key to environmental agenda.
Encourage market-based solutions to environmental problems.
Families are the cornerstone of our culture.
Support abstinence and fatherhood.
NATO has shared responsibility for peacekeeping.
U.S. should position itself to dominate trade.
Promote free trade with America setting the standards.
Federal government should not interfere with states’ rights.
Will protect right to bear arms.
Government-run universal health care leads to inefficiencies.
Affirm traditional military culture & rebuild morale (no gays).
Only legal immigrants, through tightly controlled borders.
A distinctly American internationalism for the 21st century.
Workers will have choice to invest their payroll taxes.
Cut taxes to stimulate economy and help families.
Move more welfare recipients off the welfare rolls.
More complete list at http://www.ontheissues.org/Republican_Party.htm

If you really care and are American or want to see what it would be like to have to juggle an “American” agenda in your head about a United States Presidential Vote, you can go here and try this “Candidate Calculator”. I’ve tried it and my guy came in second, but they mentioned someone in the first place slot that will have absolutely no chance, based on the media dance, to get a final party nomination. The site is:
http://www.vajoe.com/candidate_calculator.html (everyone has linked this site and it is bogging down)

http://www.votehelp.org/ seems to be nonbiased candidate calculator and I get the same results.



Based on what I have experienced and the issues that the parties claim they stand on, I am probably more Republican than Democrat (therefore more conservative than liberal). I strongly disagree with many of the stances both parties take.


I would think that Mike Huckabee the Governor of Arkansas is more closely aligned with my values. Here is the best representation I have found about his views. It should be obvious at this point that I think this is a pretty good site.
http://www.ontheissues.org/Mike_Huckabee.htm



However I think the future reality may shape Mitt Romney as the Republican nominee. There is the problem I have with the Mormons and the magical underwear. This church is just a little too bizarre for my likings and I really don’t think that his moral foundation is one that matches mine at all.

If Huckabee is out I would totally have to rethink the whole deal. I can not really support the ideals of the State of Massachusetts and that is where this guy is from. You do know I am from the south and that is just the way it is.

A real frightening scenario is John McCain. Everyone runs around touting this guy is such an independent thinker. God bless John McCain going to war for his country and surviving a harsh prisoner of war camp, but do you people HONESTLY think he doesn’t carry any baggage around from that? I know Regan was an old guy when we elected him, but he didn’t have the military background like McCain does. If you love all your children and tax money being used up in some great big Islamic meat grinder then put all your chips in with this guy. Frankly I am tired of being the World’s Police force. I have no idea what we all have in common with the State of Arizona which is where McCain hails from as Senator. I must confess that I am a bit floored by South Carolina putting him up for nomination after he disrespected the Stars n’ Bars.


I would put the odds on favorite for secession from the union again as South Carolina. But South Carolina is not alone.
http://www.vermontrepublic.org/
http://dixienet.org/
http://middleburyinstitute.org/
http://www.hawaiiankingdom.org/
http://www.texasnationalist.com/shindex.shtml



The problem with my little conservative island really boils down to how pissed off everyone is at George Bush and DICK Cheney and the political system as a whole. From the looks of things we may be going Democrat like it or not. In this case I would hope against Hillary on any level. All we need is another ass in the Whitehouse that thinks the world owes them something. Hillary Clinton thinks just because she was a Senator for a short period from a state she isn’t even from, and married to a former President who was having affairs while he was in OUR office…and in the process redefining what is an acceptable level of “sex” is going to fly with me, she’s got another thing coming. I’ll write in Mickey Mouse on my ballot, get a short wave radio and build my bunker if she gets in.



Then there is Barack Obama. He’s pretty far to the left (liberal) on a lot of issues but I really think he is less on the left than Hillary Clinton. In addition, I truly believe he will do what is in the best interest of the United States and her people despite the wired Muslim thing going on. He’s denied the Muslim issue to a point, however he has been exposed in such a way as to make him a unique enigma. Does this make me homophobic and harbor a perhaps irrational fear of Muslims? You bet your ass! At least with this guy, I’ll hold off on building the bunker and stockpiling C-rations…for awhile.



Now to vote as a spoiler or to vote for the guy I really want in the primary is another ironic twist. In my state I have a call into the election commission to see if I need to register a certain party affiliation, or if I can remain independent.
Well that’s my two cents on it. It’s a “free” country ( in most some people’s minds) so I guess we can all say what we will.

Ok my peeps. In the interest of full disclosure I am proud to announce that I am a United States Citizen, Dixie by Choice and Southern by the grace of God. Mullets for all!

I would also like to disclose that I am a registered voter with no party affiliation, and since I live in the land of the Yankees I am sure I will skew that count just a bit, but not enough to matter. Not that this ever stopped me before.

Here we are at the end of yet another 4 year cycle in the land of free and home of the brave. Those political ads and talking heads promising the moon are a constant annoyance. For those of you that don’t know, the United States is NOT A DEMOCRACY and we got the papers to prove it (**see below).
http://www.constitutioncenter.org/constitution/

So lets cut the crap about reporting that the United States of America something it is not. America is a Republic.

R-E-P-U-B-L-I-C.

Now if you don’t have a clue what that means. Here is the just of it. The American Presidential Vote does not count as an equal across the States. Since we live in a Representative Republic the American Presidential Vote only counts in which direction a citizen’s state of residence decides to align its select set of votes. The country has retained, through bloodshed, the rights of the individual states that make up the Republic. Now this is an all or nothing deal for the most part when it comes to a vote for President. If a citizen’s state of residence leans one way or the other (EVEN BY THE SMALLEST OF MARGINS) all the votes will pile up for the winning candidate FOR that specific state.

It does matter in which state a citizen resides for this scenario to play out. If a citizen is in one of those central northern rectangle states, the Presidential Vote has very little bearing on anything nationally but can be more apt to sway the state one way or another by a citizen’s independent ballot. If a citizen is voting in a very populated state, proportionally their vote also has little bearing; however the state as a whole can sway an election more so than the less populated rectangles aforementioned. To put it bluntly; if a citizen is in a state full of morons they have a good chance of helping to elect a complete dumb ass. Just look what happened in ’04 when not enough hippies voted!

So here is the run down if it matter’s to you or not.

The bottom line is if a U.S. Citizen has no gonads then they stay out of the polls and don’t vote! They especially don’t have anything to bitch about for the next 4 years because their slack ass let it slide. I voted last time, like every time so I have the unalienable right to bitch…and I am.

During the last election I had the misfortune to vote by absentee ballot. My vote also cost me about $100 bucks (USD). You thought voting was free? Let me tell you how I had to exercise my right to bitch.

I was in the fabulous blustering metropolis of Ploiesti, Romania which lies in Eastern Europe bordering the western shore of the Black Sea during the last election in 2004. The city of Ploiesti is the first major city which lies due north of the capital of Bucharest. For all you history buffs, Ploiesti had the bulk of the oil refineries the Nazis used to power their war machine. It still has operational refineries by the way.

The Allies bombed the hell out of it during the last World War (not to be confused with the present or any future World War), but anyhow there I was.

I informed my state of residence polling place in writing that I would require an absentee ballot. This “service” and paperwork was provided by the Romanian U.S. Embassy, American Citizens Services in Bucharest. They are not on my Christmas card list, but that is a story for another day.
http://bucharest.usembassy.gov/Embassy/index.html

Now I set this absentee ballot request in motion in August 2004, so I figured this would have allowed plenty of time for the paperwork to arrive long before the election (which is the first Tuesday in November for those of you who may not be aware). I had a few things going against me for this scenario to pan out. The main issue was my state of residence polling location which (at that time) was in Florence, South Carolina. Flotown (as it is known in some local circles) is not exactly a bastion of knowledge and the portion of the population which happens not to be inbred certainly, for the most part, didn’t make it far outside the confines of the county with the almost exclusive exception of myself (and a few of my buddies…wink…you know who you are!). Just to ebb the controversy a bit, I will concede that there are a few good eggs still in Flotown, but I digress.

Florence South Carolina is at the point on Interstate 95 that you turn left to get to Myrtle Beach. I say left because only Yankees, misled Midwesterners, and Canadian Hippies think that is a tourist destination. It is also the terminus or start of Interstate 20 depending on how you look at it. Other than that, there is church (primary flavor being Baptist), Bar-B-Que (vinegar style), and boredom (large doses thereof broken up by beer, pot, and fishing).

So I am hanging tuff in the eastern euro hood in my lovely communist style bloc when I realize it is a month till election and I still haven’t gotten my absentee ballot from the banjo playing yokels at the “local” election office. I call the embassy and they confirm that my request for the ballot was sent out and that I would have to contact my polling location in the states to figure out what happened…at great expense to myself I add. So I call up Florence SC, USA from Ploiesti, RO and get this amazing representative from the Florence South Carolina Voter Registration & Election Commission.

She states to me that she DID have an application for my absentee ballot HOWEVER since there was NO ZIP CODE with my address then they could not mail it.

Now I go back to morons and voting and the right to bitch. There are a few obvious problems with the zip code theory. The most obvious is the term “zip code”. Now a zip code is a unique identifier used by the United States Postal Service to identify addresses in the United States. Since the United States Postal service would not be the one delivering my absentee ballot to my location in Romania, which obviously lays outside the United States, the need for a “zip code” (which is only valid for United States addresses) is really a moot point. It is an absentee ballot which is used by persons who, among other things, are out of the country. I asked her if there were any digits associated with the return address and she stated that there was. I then told her the amazing string of digits, which corresponded to my Romanian Postal Code (insert posta Romania pic) and she confirmed that these very same digits were attached to my request (attached by my own hand I may add).

Therefore I described the problem that now encompassed the gulf between us. She had my ballot and my address but yet failed to send it after she was timely notified for some stupid reason that only her third grade comprehension could understand. So I began my climb to the top of the ladder of the Florence South Carolina Voter Registration & Election Commission and finally reached the all knowing director. At this point it was decided to send my ballot via courier. The cost of this is no small pittance. For about $75 USD one can get something delivered to Romania from the States in about 10 days. What I didn’t understand was that for my vote to be counted I would have to spend the same to get it returned in time for the election. If only some ignorant person in Florence South Carolina would have sent me my stuff in a timely manner this whole thing could have been handled for pennies.

So this gets me to the point of voting. The guy I voted for turned out to be a complete disappointment and his Secretaries of State (yeah both Condi and Colin) caused me and my family direct and proximate harm. I also feel I have more than the right to complain about it because I helped these morons stay in office through my misguided Presidential vote. My right to vote cost on the last go around; the trips to and from Bucharest to Ploiesti, the calls from Ploiesti to Florence South Carolina USA, the fact that I had to pay a Romanian Notary about $10 USD to witness that it was me voting, and the $75 USD to return the ballot back to be counted in time.
The complete irony is there was no doubt in my mind that the state of South Carolina would go Republican (as it usually does) and the fact that I was voting the Republican ticket that year made no real difference because it is all about the electoral college and that we live in a REPUBLIC and not a democracy. However I retain the right to complain. So if more hippies would have set the bong down and voted for the tree hugger our country wouldn’t be in such a mess. Damn hippies let me down again. Oh yeah…I recon it is my fault that I spent $100 to vote for the present disappointment. However when I voice my opinion, let it be known it was earned. If you don’t vote then shut the f**k up. If you do vote, welcome to the club.

Now who I endorse is another story and for another day. Be passionate and be true and stand by your word.

** Article II of the U.S. Constitution does state:”… Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.
The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed…”

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