I have decided to finally endorse a candidate for President of the United States of America. I initially supported one candidate because of his religious affiliation, but decided against him for several reasons. The only Mormon presidential candidate that would ever get my initial endorsement would be Yeah Samake, who is running for President of Mali. His website is here. Both Romney and Huntsman have several weaknesses that I feel limit them in gaining my endorsement. I feel that Romney has the perception of flip-flopping and the whole Massachusetts medicare problem. I realize the conditions in which he signed the bill and his position in a very left-leaning state. Huntsman is what a Democrat’s dream of what a Republican candidate should be, so that horse never even left the gate.

I realize that people can change as I have certainly done so in my life. I think that Romney certainly has changed as he sees where the country is headed and from where his support stems. I do not necessarily see this as the biggest drawback. He would make an admirable Vice President or even a President if he wins the Republican nomination. I will certainly vote for him in order to expunge the current malignancy occupying the White House. Despite this, I feel that I should back Herman Cain as our next President.

Cain addresses in perhaps the most simplest terms what is currently wrong with our country. It stems from loopholes, regulations, and no confidence in the system. The revamping of the tax code and its simplification is only the first step. We must start to create a business friendly environment so that we can recapture the success that we previously held. It should be easier to start and maintain a business in this country than it currently is and attacking the problem of over-taxation, over-regulation, and knee jerk loyalty to labor will in some ways solve this. Do I feel that Romney can do this? Yes and have no doubt that these are his plans. The American people, however, can be some of the stupidest in the world – just look at the adoring masses in our last presidential voting cycle. We need someone that will make it easy for the sheep to follow the shepherd.

Now, you may be asking yourself why my opinion on this matter may be of any import. My only response is that you are on my blog, reading this post.

This week in the US there were two executions of convicted murders. One was convicted of killing a police officer in Georgia and the other for a particularly brutal dragging murder in Texas. The man in Georgia was executed despite a lot of pressure from the public there to overturn the case. No one seemed to mourn the man in Texas. He and a few friends drug a black man to death behind his pickup. Putting the professions of innocence and the moral ramifications of the death penalty aside, I want to address something that has always bothered me – hate crime laws in the US. I don’t understand it.

Here is an imaginary example detailing my confusion. Say I am of a criminal persuasion and go into a 7-11. The cashier takes too long to give me the money and I, high on drugs, shoot him a couple of times. The cashier dies, I am on video and the cops come to arrest me a couple of days later after my mom rats me out so she can have my not-so-secret coke stash. I am found guilty and am sent to the electric chair.* Another tale – harboring a life-long hatred of Jews and other supposed sub-humans, I walk into my local Jewish deli and shoot the manager because I, like Mel Gibson, believe that Jews start all the wars. The local SWAT team raids my house hours later, finding me absentmindedly fondling my hoard of Nazi memorabilia. A ZOG controlled judge by the name of Goldstein sentences me to death by lethal injection. A decade later, after several appeals, I am executed by the state.±

The issue that I really have is over cause and effect. What difference does it make why a man was killed? I am not saying that intent should totally be eschewed, as that would totally throw out accidents, self-defense, and insanity. But a murder over racial or other equal motivations is no more heinous to me than one over money or anything else. A man (or woman) is still dead, leaving a hole in the victims family. All murders (by which I mean not of the three exceptions) should be processed to the harshest degree currently allowed. Allowing gradation in crime will in some sense create special social definitions where one person’s death is more horrific than another’s. Also, do we draw the same lines across all boundaries? Will a black man, if he is filled with hate towards “The Man,” then drive up and shoot me as I pick up the morning paper because of my skin color get the same treatment as an Aryan Brother pulling the same crime? I do not know. All of this current rush towards “fairness” leads me to believe not. I do not mean to just limit this to just murder either, but include rape, assault, etc. In any of these moments, no matter the reason, I am sure there is a lot of hate there.

*The first imaginary me could probably get a good lawyer and get it whittled down to just Manslaughter or Murder 2.

±The second imaginary me would probably try for an insanity plea. Pre-planned videos of me saluting “Heil Hitler” while watching Triumph of the Will, getting loaded on schnapps and repeated loops of Wagner on high volume would no doubt aid my cause.

Today I read a great article on President George W. Bush by a long time friend and sometime confidant. In it, he describes the intelligence of the 43^rd president and his understanding of past and current events. He also details Bush’s voracious appetite for books and the knowledge that he gained from them. In this, I feel a little vindicated because I have tirelessly defended George W. Bush’s intelligence from those who would launch ad hominid attacks. I, like the former president, stutter and am tongue-tied in front of an audience. This does not mean that I am any less intelligent for having this problem. The author, Walt Harrington, succinctly sums up our perhaps most debilitating political issue when he writes, “It baffles me that grown people must convince themselves that those with whom they disagree are stupid or malevolent.”

In moments of weakness, I have chosen poor words describing our current president. This is not over the belief that he is an idiot or evil. I believe that we see the world in different spectra of light. I in red and he in blue. The pun was intended. Joking aside, I need to work on how I voice my dissent and not fall in the same trap that has befallen those I opposed.