Voting Today: One's Conscience, One's Duty... and a difficult decision in my life.
Today I faced a hard reality that was one of the most difficult decisions of my life. I just voted 30 minutes ago and now realize I clearly made the correct choice.
My experience today was as follows:
I walked into the polling place and looked around the room. There were people of all ages some as young as 18 years old some in their 80's. There was general chatter around and everyone was in a rather happy mood. The folks checking IDs against the rolls all seemed happy and were obviously pleased to be volunteering their time. I verified my information and then went to the table behind me to collect my ballot.
I walked over to and ducked into the small plastic poorly built & swaying booth and began to start reading over my ballot. The first thing I read.... PRESIDENT/VICE PRESIDENT. I starred at it for at least 30 seconds knowing I had a difficult decision to make but I could not make that decision at that moment. So I continued on to vote for State Reps, Senators, Judges, School Board members and State Amendments. Also being elected was our local sheriff which happens to be one of my best friends Uncle.... so that was an important vote for me.
It took me about 10 minutes to clearly read over everything and make my mark so to speak......
And then... back to my Presidential vote.
Ever since the primary election more and more of my friends have been getting onto the McCain train not because they actually liked him but that they wanted to keep Obama out of office. Their decisions mostly pertained to the uber Socialism and Terrible Anti-Gun policies of Obama. I must admit as well, I really don't care for those issues either and he kind of scares me. I also do NOT like McCain. I think he is a hot head with terrible policies of his own.
But what do I do? Do I just follow the pack and vote for one of these two turds just because they are the only ones really with any chance of winning due to the obvious current status of things? Do I vote my conscience and support the man that I have supported since weeks after he announced he was running? After all I was more involved in politics this past 16+ months than anytime in my life by an exponential factor.
What do I do. I REALLY DON'T WANT McCain and his path to WWIII but I almost think that is more acceptable (in the since that I think the country couldn't do it anyways as we wont be able to support it financially) then the policies of the Uber Socialist Obama (which we can not afford either).
I stared at the ballot .... just stared ..... with a feeling of sadness, helplessness and general feeling of failure.
Then I started to think about a video I had watched this morning when I first had my morning coffee and sat down to read the current events online.
It was a video from an individual I watch online and have for sometime. You may know of him and you may not... his name is Don Harrold. Here is a link to the video I watched....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kPz8fnbrIY
... as I stood there in the voting booth Don's video ran through my head..... and I reflected upon this very point in the video....
Don asked for the viewer of the video to vote for the person that they felt would best uphold his oath of office. And then I thought.......
PRESIDENTIAL OATH OF OFFICE
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.
I knew at this point that my decision was not so difficult after all. It was my duty as a citizen of this country to make the choice, the only choice, for the individual that I felt, no that I KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF DOUBT, would not only uphold that oath of office but would do it in a way that would make me actually proud of my President.
My pen trailed down the list of bubbles next to all the candidates running for office and stopped right next to that bubble with an empty line next to it.
I bubbled in WRITE IN CANDIDATE and wrote clearly on the line ......
RON PAUL
... I then collected my two ballot cards and walked to the exit. Our ballots are scanned so I inserted the first one in and... swoosh... it scanned it up... then I feed the second one in... half way in it jammed.. stopping leaving the
ballot hanging out. The poll worker walked over to help me clear the jam. Guess what part was exposed? My selection for President. The gal read it looked up at me... looked back down... looked up at me and smiled.
I said... "Funny this one would Jam huh?"
The look on her face was one of "I understand what you are saying... and I get it... and I agree."... She smiled at me again and the tried 4 more times to get it to take and then finally it scanned.
She thanked me for voting gave me a sticker and I walked out the door.
5 minutes later I was at home standing in my driveway smoking a cigarette... thinking about what I had just done.
At that moment I felt pride... I felt good knowing that I was not a part of electing into office an individual that I *KNOW* won't care a bit about DEFENDING THE CONSTITUTION.
If nothing else tonight I can go to sleep tonight with a clear head KNOWING
I DID THE RIGHT THING FOR MY COUNTRY.
I feel happier right now then I have in a long... long... long time. I just wanted to share this experience with you as it will be one that I take with me the rest of my life.
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Originally Posted by RonPaulCentral
