Tag Archives: Supreme Court

Why I’m (…Pfffff…) voting for Trump

So…on Facebook the past several months I have seen a slew of my friends proclaim to all how they cannot in good conscience vote for either Hillary or Trump.  I have seen the same video (about 5,985 times) of a guy using pennies to explain how a third party candidate could take the election this year, and I’ve read compelling arguments how THIS is the year to show the establishment how the American people are sick of the two party system.  I’ve listened to the Libertarian candidate, Gary Johnson, to see what he has to say. So here is my little dose of reality.  He doesn’t have a prayer of winning. Not a snowballs chance in hell.  And he knows it.

“But Danny,” you whine, “that’s the point.  We need to show the establishment how principled we are.”

If you watch the news for even a second you’ll see Trump supporters are portrayed as angry, resentful idiots, who are angry at illegals (err… I mean “undocumented workers,”) scared to death of terrorism, worried about losing their jobs, and they feel like they don’t have any say.  I’m not really any of those.  But I’m still voting for Trump.

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Would I consider Trump the perfect candidate?  Not even close.  Is he conservative?  Noooooo.  Is he a meanie, who says mean things?  Sometimes.  Do I have a problem with that?  Not really.  To me it is actually a little refreshing to hear exactly what a candidate is thinking.  Even if it is obnoxious as hell.  At least he is genuine and open in his thinking.  It makes me laugh to watch my liberal friends act like fainting virgins every time he says something without it being sugar coated.

I guess you could say I’m not so much voting FOR Trump as I am voting AGAINST Hillary.  She is a nightmare.  She is not only insidiously dishonest, she is corrupt as hell.  I could write a novel on the evidence to back that up, but most recently, The Clinton Foundation received HUGE “donations” from foreign governments or rich elites and then she, as Secretary of State, made or participated in making favorable decisions for them.  On top of that, she not only wants to solve every problem with other people’s money, she wants to do it with a bigger and more suffocating government, with it’s corresponding loss of individual freedom, job creation and economic liberty. Hillary craves power.  She is obsessed with it.  She will say anything to get it.  Trump on other hand is running to stroke his enormous ego and to have fun.  Granted, not the best reason to be elected to be the leader of the free world, but it is a more pure motive than the thirst for riches and power.  As such he will be a more successful President.  He wants to be “great.”

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Trump is a businessman.  He creates jobs.  As such he understands how big government stifles job creation.  Hillary can talk about creating jobs, but she has never done it.  She actually bragged about putting coal miners out of work.

When I was in my early twenties I read Trump’s book “The Art of the Deal.”  He isn’t a stupid man.  When negotiating, Trump always starts high, but he is creative and willing to adapt to achieve his goals. He expects to find solutions that work for both sides.  That’s why, although I’m sure I’ll disagree with much of the outcome, he will get things done.  He was a Democrat for years.  No one can accuse him of being an ideologue.  He is a doer.  Hillary ALWAYS follows her ideological base.  That’s why, between the two of them, Trump will naturally reduce political gridlock.

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I’m so sick of hearing what a racist bigot Trump is.  Every accusation I’ve seen or read has been manipulative and far fetched. Trump is not the most articulate or sensitive person to run for President. According to his daughter, Ivanka, he is “an equal opportunity offender,” but while he has been in the public eye for over thirty years, he has never once been accused as racism until he ran against a Democrat.  Not once.  Wanting to secure the border isn’t a race issue.  It’s a policy issue.   I have yet to be shown hard evidence of racism or the phobias Trump has been charged with.

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All that being said.  The MAIN reason I’m voting for Trump this year:  The next President could name as many as four Supreme Court Justices. To me that is: The. Single. Most. Important. Issue.

Everything else pales in comparison.

I can respect not liking Trump and I TOTALLY understand hating Hillary.   I wish so, so bad we had other options.  But…here we are.  We all have a choice to make.  The time for a third party isn’t now, and withholding your vote will only directly help Hillary.  So that’s stupid.  I can’t help but wonder how the “#NeverTrump” or the “principle over party” people are going to explain to their children how they stood by their principles while Hillary nominates judges who will eradicate our 1, 2, 4, 5, and 10th amendments.  Imagine in five years, when Clinton is entering her second term with guns outlawed in every state (except Texas) there is a tax on everything you can dream of, when the border is virtually abolished, and “Hate speech” is being punishable by 10-12 years in prison (even if what is said is true).  You probably think I’m being super dramatic here, and… to your credit, you are probably right, but look at the world we live in now, look at the rhetoric that has become policy and tell me how far fetched it really is.  Are you going to brag to your children how you stood by your principles saying, “the lesser of two evils is still evil?”  Because, I’ve gotta tell you, that’s stupid too.  That’s like comparing a torn rotator cuff to having your arm amputated.  I would highly recommend avoiding both, but if I have to chose one or the other, the choice is obvious.

There is a lot at stake right now.  Between the two, the choice is (…Pfffffff…) Donald J. Trump.

 

LIFEZILLA:  Filling the internet with little cleansing bubbles

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You Got Married? That’s So Gay!

So, as much as it kills me (and it does cause me physical pain) I’m going to throw in my two cents on this whole gay marriage thing that is happening in Utah.

If you don’t know, or if you have been living under a rock, on December 20, 2013 U.S. District Judge Robert Shelby ruled that the Utah state ban on gay marriage violated the U.S. Constitution.

If you’re new here (you may be the seventh person to find this) I have already brilliantly written my take on gay marriage before, you can find it here.

I’ll try to keep this fresh.

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Our founding fathers were obsessed with the separation of powers. They didn’t want the federal government to grow out of control, and so they set up checks and balances. They did recognize there were certain things the federal government needed to be in charge of: making money, immigration, declaring war, you know…stuff like that. To help ensure the restriction on the growth of the federal government they gave us the 10th amendment. It reads:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

In other words, any issue not specifically mentioned in the Constitution for the federal government to have dominion over (for lack of a better word) is up to the states to decide.

Government's duty

Let me illustrate an example of the federal government overreaching its authority. Let’s say there is a small, random state of roughly 3 million people. The people of the state don’t want to have fluoride added to the water. They don’t care if other states put fluoride in theirs, it just isn’t for them. They vote and add it to their states constitution that they are a “No fluoride in the water” state. Sixty-six percent of the voters come out in favor of this resolution. BUT…there are a few dentists in the state who disagree with the will of the people. “How can the state not want fluoride?” they argue. “There is no evidence that it hurts anyone.” So they sue, and find a federal judge who interprets the “everlasting gobstopper clause” of the US constitution as saying the will of the people is wrong. And so the state district attorney immediately starts pouring fluoride in drinking water.

That is exactly what happened with gay marriage in Utah.

“But Danny,” you whine, “not everyone is Utah voted on that amendment, what about the will of the people who didn’t vote?”  This is going to sound super harsh to my butt-hurt liberal friends, but if they didn’t vote, their opinion doesn’t mean squat.

Quick side note:  Is it just me, or does “LGBT” sounds too much like a sandwich?

“But Danny,” you whine even louder, “didn’t the Supreme Court knock down DOMA, thus opening the door to this kind of thing?” (DOMA is the “Defense of Marriage Act – signed by Bill Clinton which defined marriage as between a man and a woman).  Hmmm….not really.  Basically the repeal of DOMA showed that the Supreme Court recognized that defining marriage wasn’t the federal government’s place, that put definition of marriage back to the state.

And later, the same year part of DOMA was repealed, Shelby, the judge from a lower court, said the state couldn’t define it either.

I’ve read quite of bit about gay marriage. I’ve read the arguments for, and I’ve read the arguments against. I’ve even read articles where the writer uses copious amounts of inordinately profuse, abstruse, and perplexing vocabulary. When reading these articles I always think, “Whatever, dude, what-ev-er (or dudette if you are one.)” In my mind very few people get it, on either side of the issue.

Captain Obvious

It’s sad. There are faces involved. The roughly 1,400 same-sex couples who were married in Utah are in limbo.  Are they married or not?  These people are being used as pawns.  I know my butt-hurt liberal friends are going to howl at that phrase, but it’s true.  They are being used as pawns.   The district attorney who authorized the county clerks to issue gay marriage license knew this was going to happen.

In my little brain the real issue here isn’t gay marriage. That is just the face of it. The real issue is States’ Rights.  Sadly, most people (in this case those in favor of the judges ruling on gay marriage) aren’t looking at the big picture. They either don’t get–or they don’t care–that you can’t pick up one side of a stick. They have an issue and if one activist federal judge can overrule the will of the people, to them, the end justifies the means.

To me that is wrong. Good ends should come about from good means.

Think about it.  We live in a representative democracy.   Generally speaking if a law is made from the elected legislators we, the people, are accepting of it.  Almost all of the most decisive issues in the country are brought about judicially.

Whatever your opinion on gay marriage, for it or against it, it should be the voice of the people who decides. We don’t live in an aristocracy, where the smart people tell the stupid how to live.  In the United States, judges don’t have the right, and should stop trying, to invent laws.

 

LIFEZILLA:  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice…you probably have boobs.

Piss off

 

Party

 

Written in stone

Something Wicked This Way Comes

Something Wicked This Way Comes

You would think I would be over it now, but I’m still a little bitter about it.  I just still can’t believe how stupid the American Electorate is.  Now everyone is screaming about how the Republicans need to ‘reach out’ to this group or that group.  They need to ‘evolve.”  And you know what?  That may be true.  In fact, let’s say (for sake of argument) it’s 100% true.  Still.  We had one chance to steer the country away from a fiscal Greece-style cliff and what did we do?  We hit the gas.

Why?  Because of “birth control, binders and Big Bird,” oh my!!!

 As you can imagine, many of my more liberal friends have been teasing me this last week.  I can take it, bring it on.  What is…well…I don’t want to say its “sad,” because it is just part of the gig.  What’s “kind of sad” is that an uninformed vote means just as much as an informed one.  Don’t get me wrong; I get that people have different points of view. If President Obama is your guy and you can list off the reasons why, I have nothing but respect for that.  But, if your only two reasons are (and I honestly heard these) “He is just trying so hard, I just feel we need to give him a second chance,” or “Bush was just so bad,” you should just go back to watching “Dancing with the Stars” and let the grown-ups talk. (FYI, I really enjoy watching DWTS.)

As I look back at it, what REALLY gets me is things like this:

This is honestly one of Obama’s super-charming campaign slogans that (apparently) many single women took to heart.  But let me let you in on a little secret: nothing about this election had anything to do with your “lady parts”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a HUGE fan of “lady parts.”  HUGE FAN.  I’m a huge fan of women.  I look at my wife (who, four kids and twenty-one years later, is still SMOKIN’ HOT) and all she does: cleans, cooks, full time job, volunteer work, she works with the Young Women at our church–she amazes me.  I firmly believe all women should be put on a pedestal, I really do, for all those reasons.  Plus, when you put a woman up on a pedestal, it is easier to look up her skirt (wicked grin).

To me it is ironic that women, who supposedly are strong, voted to be taken care of by government.

“But Danny,” you whine, “what about contraception?”  Either way the election went, nothing would have changed in the realm of contraception.  Nothing, zero, zip, noda, regardless of who won.

“But Danny,” you continue to whine, “what about abortion?”  It amazes me that abortion rears its ugly head every election.  It is one of those divisive issues that doesn’t mean a thing.  Regardless of your personal thoughts on abortion, for it or against it, the fact Roe v. Wade was brought about judiciously, took that debate entirely out of the legislative arena. In other words, you cute little bugger you, no president or Congress could pass any laws to undermine it as long as that precedent stands.

Yes, it’s true: Romney could have appointed Supreme Court justices that might overturn that precedent (though I doubt it).  But even if he did, NOTHING would have changed. Congress has codified the principles of Roe v. Wade into federal law, so the only way to completely overturn it would be, the Republicans would have to control the White House, Congress, and 60 votes in the Senate (something that has never happened in the history of the republic), and that is assuming all Republicans are pro-life.

Now I’m well aware that I’m being completely hypocritical with this next statement.  I get it.  I just can’t believe anyone would base their vote on ONE issue.

The biggest threat to anyone’s “lady parts” is the fiscal solvency of your nation.  That threat is actually real.  The made-up bull crap about abortion and contraception is just that: Crap.  How could anyone vote for anything based on phantom stories when we have a very real and compelling prospect of an irrecoverable economic disaster?  Un-be-freaking-lievable.

In case you can’t tell, I’m still amazed, and a little peeved at the election results.

 

LIFEZILLA:  I don’t know about you, but I could really go for a punch in your face right now.