Presidential Politics

My friends and family in Australia are watching the political process in the USA with great interest. Having been raised in Australia, I suspect that most Australians would find it interesting, even romantic, that a black man in the USA could rise to the top of his political party...and possibly become President. And it is romantic; it is also historic.

The problem for me, and social conservatives like me, is that Barack Obama does not live in, or believe in, the same USA that I live in, believe in and love. I don't want to change it. Barack Obama can say with a straight face..."The USA is the greatest country in the world...help me change it." The trouble is that he does NOT believe that the USA is a great country...and he wants to change it dramatically. The USA that Barack Obama wants us to live in would destroy all that we hold dear, especially if we end up with Democtrats controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court.

Obama has zero executive experience. He has never run a business or managed anything. And we should turn management of the USA over to him? Obama has served only 140 days in the US Senate. Prior to that he claims to have been a "Community Organizer"...which is a nice way of saying "a rabble rouser". He took time to obtain a law degree, but he has spent his entire career reminding people how bad their lives really are...how government should be helping them more...and how bad the USA really is...all in support of his own political ambition and power. He has THE most radical, left-wing voting record in Congress...he is way left of John Kerry and Ted Kennedy. I liked John F. Kennedy, but Obama would not be able to support the Democratic Party of JFK who said "Ask not what your country can do for you...rather, ask what you can do for your country". Obama has already reversed that premise...he wants to create a growing class who will vote for anyone who will support the premise that government should take care of them..can take care of them...all through the redistribution of wealth. New Orleans, for example, is a sad microcosm of that world of dependency, created by the liberal Democtratic party. They shamelssly blamed the negative effects of Katrina on President Bush...not on a sick, dependent society, devoid of individual initiative.

The USA that I live in and appreciate, is an ensign of freedom, liberty and opportunity to all nations. People from many nations are still lining up to get in legally... except for Mexicans ...but they will risk even death in the desert to get in illegally. The founding fathers had a sense that Providence was directing them. They united the individual states as "One nation...under God". They were men of principle. They believed in individual liberty...freedom to pursue personal happiness through their own initiative....and freedom of religion. They drafted a Constitution and a Bill of Rights which govern our Democtratic Republic and guarantee our rights.

The Mormon perspective is even more conservative that that of the Republican party. Mormons and liberal Democrats are hardly on the same political planet. The differences in our perspectives can be explained in one example: Conservatives want freedom OF religion...the left-wing liberals want freedom FROM religion. The Constitution guarantees the former...it does not guarantee the latter. Freedom FROM religion, taken to the extreme, would eliminate freedom OF religion...but that is the objective for many liberal social progressives. But that is just the tip of the iceberg. So-called social progressives see the Constitution as an outdated, outmoded, archaic document, which is out-of-touch with the reality in which they live...out-of-touch with their USA.

The Mormon perspective is based upon scripture, which declares that this nation is, in fact, the work of God...that God raised up and inspired men of principle and goodwill, such as the incredible John Adams (and his equally incredible wife Abigail), to create a nation where men and women would be free to participate in government...free from the tyranny of government. In particular, it was to be a nation in which a young man like Joseph Smith could declare the heavens open, that God had again spoken to man on the earth, as he had in ages past, without being burned at the stake for heresy. That he was murdered at age 39 by otherwise Christian men is only a sad commentary on the fragility of Constitutional guarantees to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Mormons and their conservative friends, are dedicated to the preservation of the Constitution. While to some it may appear to be the work of men...to us it is the work of God...it is not a document which may be changed to reflect the social decay of the times.

John McCain, who will soon be the nominee of the Republican Party, is not paticularly our man either. But he is much preferred over Obama. McCain is a self-proclaimed maverick...he is a middle-of-the roader. He satisfies neither liberals nor conservatives. To date I have not contibuted a dollar to his campain. The platform of the Republican Party proves that the Party has left conservatives like me behind. I was almost at the point of deciding not to vote in the November election. My thinking was that if enough conservatives refused to vote for McCain, he would surely lose...the country would go-to-hell-in-a-hand-basket so-to-speak...the Republican Party would need to regroup and rethink its core principles. I thought that the one thing that might reverse my position was if McCain chose Governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts as his running mate.

But then McCain announced his choice for Vice President and stunned us all. He chose Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska, who is possibly the most socially conservative candidate he could have found. It was thrilling. I was aware of her accomplishments through an interview which she had with TV commentator Glenn Beck, about a month back. The liberal press, of course, never had cause to follow a social conservative like Governor Palin, who even challenged the ethics of her own Republican Party in Alaska. And she's a mother of 5...mother of a young army volunteer, who will be in Iraq in ten days...she's pro-life...she even gave birth knowingly to a child with Downs Syndrome. To me...she's an angel. Well...she fits my definition of an earth angel, which includes any woman who loves and nurtures a child with special needs.

In the weeks to come the liberal press, will tear Governor Palin apart. They have moved from any semblance of independent journalistic coverage, to openly campaigning for Obama. Sarah Palin will be viewed as a threat. The liberal press is already promoting the premise that if the US citizenry does not select Obama as its President, it will be because he is black. That is so sad. It is not true. Most Americans would vote for a black candidate, if he/she was the right candidate. Democrats, of course, made an historic choice; they selected a black man over a woman as their presidential candidate. Obama had the opportunity to make a woman his running mate. Instead he chose an old white male, whose left wing, radical views are second only to Obama's. On the other hand, McCain, the maverick, chose a woman as his running mate. Maybe we should suggest that a vote for McCain would be an historic vote for women in US politics, while a vote for Obama would be a vote against women.

If the race should come down to women vs blacks in US politics, maybe we should point out that Governor Palin is demonstrably 100% woman, while Senator Obama is only 50% black.