campaign for liberty.

hello, election season.

the last presidential election is what sparked my interest in politics and government. i found myself torn between who to vote for and did not decide until the night before. the night after obama won i went to a ben sollee concert. that’s not relevant. i’m just saying it happened.

i have learned so many things. and i’m still learning so many things. but this election season is different for me. i understand what’s going on. I watched the first republican debate tonight and was engaged for the entire hour and a half that it aired. and i was taking notes.

four pages of them.

yes. what you are dreading is true. i’m going to write about it.

**disclaimer: i am not loyal to any political party. (another topic for another time...) which means i have critical things to say about both. so a rejection of a candidate i listened to in the debate is not a rejection of the republican party or republicans...just that candidate.**

there were five candidates. two of them i am going to ignore here. except to say this:

herman cain. he’s the former CEO of godfather’s pizza. and that’s it. he never really said anything. he’s never held office. which is fine. but he doesn’t stand a chance so i’m not even going to go there.

gary johnson. former governor of new mexico. he was actually my second favorite. he had a few good things to say…such as being opposed to the war in iraq, and he’s a fan of the free market. he stated things very simply which i appreciated. but he’s pro-choice, which means he doesn’t stand a chance either. (single-issue voting republicans…another post for another time…)

so we have arrived at my least favorite. rick santorum. he has served in the house and senate.

he’s not cool.

when asked about statements he has made before about muslims, he went to a bad place. he reiterated that he is not anti-islam, but we have to deal with the fact that there’s an “ideological battle” going on.

sigh. i just checked to see if he helped write the 9/11 commission report. we’ve been here before. i recognize that tree.

a huge part of the problem is america’s foreign policy. his focus on islam as the problem will not lead to a solution.

he also briefly mentioned his support of use of torture to obtain information about terrorists/terrorist plots. because it led to the capture of bin laden.

“The fact that one can point to an instance where torture produced the desired answer proves nothing about whether there were more effective ways of obtaining it.” – Glenn Greenwald

torture, y’all. torture of a human being. don’t even try justifying it to me. there was One who was tortured for the good of mankind. no one else needs to be.

he said predictable republican things about healthcare.

i could go on about this guy for a long time. i didn’t like how he tried to connect the idea of “liberty” (what america was founded on) to moral issues…that’s not a clear connection. his thoughts on pakistan were bush-esque. he actually quoted bush. he’s the poster child for a republican candidate. everything stereotypical you could think about a republican…let’s just pretend that’s what he said. because he probably did. actually in his closing remarks he said he is conservative on every issue and has “arrows in his back from the mainstream media to prove it.” boo freaking hoo. what is the deal with republicans always whining about the media not loving them? the mainstream media isn’t even a reliable source of news, so why do you WANT them to be on your side?

my next least favorite was tim pawlenty. former governor of minnesota.

he is also a fan of torture because the “first order of business” for the government is to “protect the country.”

false.

safety is - not – the first order of business for the government.

don’t make me quote the federalist papers.

the first order of business is to ensure our freedom and liberty, not our safety. don’t let the government make you so afraid of terrorists that you yield to what is wrong and morally reprehensible.

being willing to torture someone because it will supposedly help protect us is incredibly twisted logic. preventing one evil with a different kind of evil doesn’t make any sense.

oh no, oh NO. this is the part about libya. oh. no.

he said the president has said that we oppose gaddafi, so we should back up those words by sending special forces to libya.

it gets worse.

he said the president wasn’t decisive enough when problems broke out in libya, and that if he had been more decisive, things would have been taken care of already.

i don’t know about you, but i remember being a bit SHOCKED to hear that we were in libya, and felt the president was a bit TOO HASTY in involving america.

decisiveness was not the problem.

it gets even worse.

he said the president should not have waited (WAITED?? did he wait? did he?) for the arab league to give him permission….

because, why, america can do whatever it wants?

he said our hands have been tied by the u.n. and he called the u.n. pathetic.

not touching that.

and that “if the president says he has to go, he must go.”

because if the president of the united states says something…the whole world has to obey?

i really can’t say anything else about him. i forgot who was my least favorite now. him or the other guy.

and it’s late now. and this is too long already. my favorite republican candidate gets a post of his own on another night.

ron paul…

says exactly what he thinks. even though it sounds crazy. just give him a minute to explain! i'm getting a head of myself.