What I Can't Understand

Candidate "A" entered the presidential race in 2008 as an amateur. He was virtually unknown -- a community organizer with zero business experience, a senator with minimal legislative experience, voted "present" on all controversial issues, and had a blemished but largely secretive past. Despite all those things, I can understand why the people elected him. We were exhausted from Bush, and we associated all things Republican with Bush. Candidate A used cushy words like "hope," "change," and "believe" and those words were exactly what many Americans needed to hear. I personally saw nothing but empty words. My primary reason for neglecting him as president was simply because I knew nothing about him and could find nothing from his past to suggest that he would succeed in his lofty promises.

Four years have passed and I wasn't proven wrong. He promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Instead he spent more money than any other president previous to him, then blamed it on Bush for setting us on that spending path. But if the rate of spending were like driving a car, Bush was driving at 60 mph, and when Candidate A took the drivers seat he floored it to 300 mph. He lost America's AAA financial rating. He implemented universal healthcare, or the biggest tax increase on middle income families since the 1960's, by promising that it wasn't a tax, but then still touted it on the campaign trail after the Supreme Court ruled it, indeed, a tax. He fostered the greatest boost in numbers of the dependent society. He played over a hundred rounds of golf. Your and my taxes have spent more on his vacations than for any other first family, even compared against two-term presidents. He lost more jobs than he created. He spent trillions on green energy: Solyndra (bankrupt, cover-up), Fisker (outsourced, then bankrupt), the Chevy Volt ($80k to make, sells for $40k), and a list that is much, much longer of failed businesses. He ran guns to Mexican drug cartels which were used to kill American border agents and tried to cover it up, and he is currently in the midst of potentially the largest cover up in U.S. history regarding details of the Benghazi consulate attack.

I don't understand how that man could point to that record, which he did, and convince people that it was a success, which he did. How could a man with that kind of track record ever be re-elected?

But what is completely beyond my comprehension is how Candidate A beat Candidate "B".

Let's meet Candidate B. He is an open book. There are no secrets about his past. He is an exceptionally successful and authenticated business man, involved in creating household name companies such as Staples, Domino's Pizza, Sports Authority, Pizza Hut, Brookstone, AMC Entertainment, Burger King, Burlington Coat Factory, Dunkin Donuts, Sealy, Toys 'R Us, Warner Music Group, Totes, and The Weather Channel all of which employ more people than jobs created by Candidate A. He later turned away from AMC Entertainment because he didn't want to profit from R-rated movies -- placing his morals before profits. He turned the deficit-ruined Olympics into a surplus, he sat in the Massachusetts Governor's seat with a $3 billion deficit, left four years later with a $2 billion surplus, all while not accepting the Governor salary. He is a proven economic turn-around machine! He gave away every penny of his inheritance to charity and then earned and exceeded the amount of his inheritance because of his savvy business skills, and still gives most of it away, and promised also to reject the presidential salary.

But if you're giving into the mainstream media hype, you're supposed to hate him because of the fruits of his success -- his wealth. You're supposed to hate him because he used the word "binders" when articulating the extra initiative he took to hire more women. And I cannot begin to fathom how MSNBC can demonize him for giving supplies to hurricane Sandy victims while many of them are screaming at Candidate A for neglecting to give them the help they need. You're supposed to hate him for helping others. You're suppose to hate him because that's what you're told to do.

If we kept the names of the candidates anonymous and only showed a brief list of their accomplishments and you were required to vote on those merits alone, I can't even imagine that Candidate A would win. I'll give him credit for 2 of his kept promises: that gas prices would "necessarily skyrocket," and that we would have to pass the healthcare reform bill before finding out what's in it. I know, that was Pelosi, but I get the same skin-crawly feeling.

And before you bring in social issues like abortion, gay rights, women's rights, racism, etc, stop the bullcrap train right there. Another thing the mainstream media is imprinting on your brain is that Conservatives want to control your lives. This is, in fact, the Liberal's very agenda and the very antithesis of Conservatism. At the core of Conservatism (and Christianity, especially Mormonism) is what is called "Free Agency" or freedom to choose, and an understanding that our choices bring certain consequences. We are far more interested in stopping the government from controlling our lives than we are in controlling your life. Simply put, we don't want to pay our taxes to fund your personal lifestyle, and we don't expect you to do it for us either. Believe it or not, there are Conservatives who are anti gun, homosexual, vegetarian, atheist, pro-healthcare reform, etc. These Conservatives simply don't buy guns, they quietly lead their lives, they don't eat meat, they don't go to church, and they shop for their own healthcare. Compare that with Liberals who fight for the outlawing of all guns, demand legislated respect, try to ban meat products for everyone, want any mention of God and religion silenced, and demand that everyone pay for their healthcare. They launch attacks on Fox News and anyone else that disagrees with them while Conservatives simply change the channel. Don't tell me that we are trying to control your lives. The government (we the people) is not a piggy bank to solve your problems, it is the problem. I could care less if you have an abortion, or if gays marry each other, or if you don't believe in God. I believe there are consequences for those actions, but you disagree, so who cares? Take a lesson from Conservatives and don't force me to publicly accept and pay for your lifestyle, and we won't force you to publicly accept ours. It is selfish to demand funding for your lifestyle choices when that money should be used to help people that actually have real problems like poverty, homelessness, job-loss, and natural disaster devastation.

And how is that war on women going for you? It must be hard to make us look like the bad guys in that fight when you have Candidate A telling women to "vote with your lady parts," and launching an official campaign ad that compares voting to losing your virginity. Then Sandra Fluke really helped your cause by demanding that the government (which means you and your money) pay for her loose lifestyle so that she can be judicially negated of any and all consequences for her personal choices. Yes, of course, it's your choice and your body, so why do you need my money? It must be tough to maintain your image as "on the side of women" when you consistently objectify them.

The point I'm trying to make here is that our country is a sinking ship. The giant hole on the bottom of the ship is the economy. If that isn't fixed the whole thing goes down and your favorite social issue isn't going to matter any more. Your argument that Conservatives, and not Liberals, are trying to control everyone's life is a spoon-fed load of crap. When are you going to learn that forcing people to do what you think is right is a form of universal repression, and not the progression you extol?

So congratulations, America. You chose Candidate A again. You chose a man who has failed miserably in everything he has done over a man who has succeeded in almost everything he's done. You think the world owes you something. You think the government should legislate your (and my) life and give you what you need. You, who voted for him are more interested in a partisan victory and a country that fulfills your demands to the standard that you want. I don't doubt that many of you are hard-workers -- it isn't my intention to attack your character, aside from evidence pointing to the contrary. I just feel like you lost sight of the big picture this time. Candidate A will give you what you want, but at what cost? And I'm not just talking about money. Your independence is on shaky ground.

But speaking of money, here are the taxes associated with the Affordable Care Act. Enjoy that. Human Resources gave a presentation to us at work about the changes to our benefits in 2013 due to CandidateACare; they were especially upset about their Flex fund being cut in half. There was a whole lot of uproar, and I couldn't help but think to myself that most of them voted for the man who put it in place and will probably re-elect him too. If you think the Affordable Care Act is actually affordable, you're delusional. Keep an eye on the gross vs. net balance of your paychecks for a while -- you'll start to see a difference.

But I can't really get too angry at average Americans. I mean, just take a look at the popular vote map:

Something is wrong.

Mormon? Or, More man?

I'll just say it: If you're a Mormon and you're voting for Romney just because he's a Mormon, you're dumb. If you're not voting for Romney just because he's a Mormon, you're dumb. A person's religion should rarely, if ever, be the basis for voting them into a political office (unless they say something crazy like "the future does not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam," but that would be just INSANE!).

I have a lot of Mormon friends who are not voting for Romney, and I don't mean that in the "I'm-not-racist-many-of-my-friends-are-black" sort of way. I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for 5 years--I was a freakazoid outcast at church, politically speaking. But I have a lot of friends from there whom I respect and love, and they are no Romney supporter by any stretch of the imagination, and I'm okay with that.

So here's my beef:

Any LDS person will tell you that the mainstream media's attempt to really understand and positively expose Mormonism generally miss the mark. Inaccuracies overfloweth the cup of misunderstanding, but I think that, as a collective community, we've come to accept that that will happen, and we try our best to personally represent what the church really is about. It's getting more personal now, as the media is using the Mormon card as a basis for an argument that Romney should not be president because of the "wacky" beliefs that he holds. Whatever, I expected that. But I'm seeing a very disturbing trend among many of my Obama supporting Mormon friends--the relaying of articles, blogs, and videos through the channels of Facebook that are not accurately representative of the fundamental Church doctrines, but are expressly intended to make Romney look bad through the lenses of his beliefs, which we share.

I don't care which candidate you support, but I wish we could unite to keep our religious values strong. Remember, you're voting for a secular leader, not a Bishop. Instead of passing along some garbage that demeans our community in the hopes that it will convince others to sway to your political leaning, let's work together to keep the below-the-belt religion fight a non-factor. May I remind you that "We believe . . . that Christ will reign personally upon the earth." At which point, our worldly political parties will no longer exist and we will have One leader (yes, anti-religionists, similar to a Dictatorship, only sans corruption).