Happy Election Day!

I hate election day.  I really do.  Already my stomach is in knots and already I feel like I want to throw up because I'm so nervous.  

I can't ever remember our country being at such a crossroads or an election being so critical to the direction the United States is going to take.  If we, as a nation, collectively decide that we want a person to be president who is going to shove more and more government down our throats, well, I will accept that.  For now.  

But I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my head around the idea that citizens of the freest country in the world want more federal government mandates, more government restrictions and more money being collected and redistributed by one of, if not the, most ineffective, inefficient entities that exist.  I accept it, but I don't understand it.

I wish I could say I am voting for liberty; for freedom, but in my opinion, neither of the two viable candidates really understands the concept, and the reality that government is not inherently good or desirable and works best when it doesn't exist.  But while John McCain may not fully embody someone who, in my opinion, fully comprehends the importance of liberty and the absolute necessity that we remember our country is a republic, and not a democracy, and why that distinction is really, really important, I am even more certain his opponent will give us the antithesis of liberty.  

If Barack Obama becomes president, I am not a doomsayer; this country will survive.  But our citizenship will be less free.  A country cannot centralize its government and create more government programs without infringing on its peoples' freedom and rights.  A citizenship may choose to accept the loss of liberty, and our electorate may choose to today, but we cannot get around the fact that we will be less free tomorrow than we are today if Senator Obama becomes President Obama.

I leave you with a few of my favorite quotes on this, election day.

It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once. -- David Hume

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. -- Ronald Reagan

Man is not free unless government is limited... as government expands, liberty contracts.  --Ronald Reagan

Government is not reason; it is not eloquent; it is force.  Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. --George Washington

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them. -- Thomas Jefferson

When a government takes over a people's economic life it becomes absolute, and when it has become absolute it destroys the arts, the minds, the liberties and the meaning of the people it governs. --Maxwell Anderson

May God bless America.