Big Jolly Politics

politics in Harris County and Texas

Don’t judge Donald Trump? Are you serious?

by

We must judge Donald Trump.

As I write this early on a Sunday morning, millions of Americans of various faiths are preparing to head to one of the hundreds of thousands of churches in the U.S.A. Many of them are so fearful of a Hillary Clinton presidency that they will be praying that Donald Trump wins the election. They are so fearful of a Hillary Clinton presidency that they have suspended all logic and reason, believing that the new Donald Trump is different from the old Donald Trump of 3, 6, 12, 18 months ago. Or 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 20 years ago. They have convinced themselves that a 70 year old man’s life history should be ignored by voters because he says that he won’t let them down.

And they will tell me and others like me that we shouldn’t judge Donald Trump because we aren’t God and we don’t know what’s in his heart. That we shouldn’t judge Trump because the Bible tells us that we shouldn’t judge others.

I’ll skip the biblical discussion and let them believe what they want to believe. But have I judged Donald Trump? You bet that I have. And every voter in America should be judging him as well. Elections require us to judge the people running for office. Be they Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump.

I didn’t judge Trump this week, after his bragging about sexual assault was caught on tape. I judged him many months ago, determining that he has no business being President of the United States of America. I judged him and decided that:

  • his political philosophy doesn’t match mine
  • he is not a Republican
  • he cannot beat Hillary Clinton and will drag the entire party down with him
  • he is an authoritarian that would prefer to be a dictator and will act like one if elected
  • he has no credibility to be commander in chief of our military
  • he is a loose cannon that cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons
  • he has a zero sum outlook on the world – if he can’t have it, no one can
  • he has no sense of morality or common decency

I also decided that I would never vote for Donald Trump and was #neverTrump before there was a hashtag. Ted Cruz was right:

Donald will betray his supporters on every issue.

Truer words were never spoken.

Regardless of what you hear and see from your friends on Facebook or in the media, this is not a “binary” election. There are better candidates on your ballot than Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump. I’ll be voting for Gary Johnson. Others will vote for Jill Stein. Still others will write in Evan McMullin. Don’t let anyone fool you into thinking that you have to vote for Trump or Clinton.

And don’t let anyone tell you that you shouldn’t judge Donald Trump. As an American voter, you have a duty to judge all candidates.  It’s in the Bible.

The alternatives: Gary Johnson and Jill Stein

by

Forget the people that call this a “binary” presidential election. That is nonsense. I like the way this explains it:

vote-for-johnson-is-vote-for-johnson

If you are like me and have decided not to vote for either the Democrat or Republican nominee, it is important to remember that there are other choices on the ballot. The Libertarian Party nominee is Gary Johnson and the Green Party nominee is Jill Stein. I’m not sure if Stein will be on all 50 state ballots but Johnson will. There will probably be others on the ballot but those two are the ones with the most publicity. Of course, most of that publicity is negative because our system is designed to demean and mock people that are not part of the dominant two parties. Still, if you search around, you can find out a lot about Stein and Johnson and much of it is pretty good. Especially compared to the two nominees at the top of the D and R tickets.

Gary Johnson

The best article that I can find on Johnson comes from the Washington Post with the headline “Years before ‘Aleppo moment,’ Gary Johnson showed little interest in details of governing“. Clearly the headline writer is not a Johnson fan and since most people don’t bother to read more than headlines, you would expect the article to be negative. Instead, it is full of information that should make any conservative smile. Here are a few snippets:

As governor, he imposed schedule discipline. His Cabinet would meet precisely at 8 a.m. every Monday, power bars and water at the table. Each member had only two minutes to deliver a report.

“If you can’t explain it in two minutes, it doesn’t need to be done,” said Diane Kinderwater, Johnson’s former communications director.

…

The first time the legislature sent a budget to Johnson’s desk, Ingle said, lawmakers thought they had done well by allotting only “a couple hundred-thousand dollars” more than Johnson’s goal of $2.8 billion.

Johnson vetoed it.

“We couldn’t believe it,” Ingle said. “But I said, at least he told us what he was going to do. This man is honest.”

…

Steven Neville was a Republican county commissioner in rural San Juan County, in the state’s upper northwest corner, when the legislature agreed to spend $1 million in preparation for a national rodeo competition being held there. Johnson vetoed the measure. As a result, the county had to find money on its own.

“We actually did what we needed to do to have a good rodeo,” said Neville, now a state senator. “It was annoying, but he was fair.”

…

An examination of eight years of legislation showed that Johnson vetoed a bill to create specialized license plates because he thought it was too costly. He vetoed the formation of an African American affairs committee and a task force examining how to get equal pay for women because he thought they were a waste of time and money.

Although he describes himself as a social liberal, Johnson angered many on the left when he ended collective bargaining for state employees and cut off Medicaid funding for abortions that doctors deemed medically necessary. Johnson now says he regrets the Medicaid decision.

…

By the end, Johnson praised himself for delivering a tax cut worth at least $60 million, expanding the highway system and repealing a gas tax. He left with a $1 billion state surplus and, according to the Albuquerque Journal, a 45 percent approval rating.

(click here to read Robert Samuels’ complete story in the Washington Post)

Like I said, good stuff for any conservative or freedom loving person. You should also read the comments.

Dr. Jill Stein

I don’t know much about Dr. Jill Stein and her overall philosophy is certainly different from mine. But former presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul likes her:

“If you have a sincere progressive, I knew ’em, I’ve worked with ’em, and they say ‘one of the most important issues to me is civil liberties and change in our foreign policy,’ Jill Stein, vote for her….”

Well, those are also important issues to me. Extremely important. If Johnson wasn’t on the ballot, I’d vote for Stein on those issues alone. Here is a short introduction to her while she answers foreign policy questions from Charles Krauthammer and George Will.

Perry Dorrell over at Brains and Eggs is a supporter of Stein and you can find much more about her there.

Like I said at the start of this post, don’t believe those who claim this is a “binary” election and you MUST vote for the D or the R. Study the candidates, find one that best matches your own issues and beliefs, then vote your conscience. That is the only path to real change.