Why is principle more important than winning?

In November we will elect a new President of the United States (POTUS). The Republican party is telling me I need to vote for Donald J Trump (DJT) to keep Hillary Clinton (HRC) out of office. There is always the question of whether the lesser of two evils, really is a lesser evil. I don’t know the future. The point of this post is not about telling you who to vote for. I believe in the principle that America is to be a Free country. Not cost less, but restriction limited. The founding principles all focused on giving the individual all of the freedom possible, with still having a cooperative environment. One where the powerful could not remove the welfare of the powerless.

So why do you think I must vote a certain way? To vote for a winner? So this is nothing more than a popularity contest. Sorry gang, in High school I didn’t vote for the popular class president, I voted for the one that would actually do something. Voting for a winner is not how to rule a country. The whole problem with “Voting for the winner” is that your principles are not even consulted. Wining is not a principle, it's a result.

Do you sometimes need to compromise your principles? No. Do you need to make compromises to get to an equitable end? Sure. Of the 57 founders of the 1791 Constitution, 15 of them were slave owners. Of those 15 at least 2 were against slavery and were unable, by law, to sell their slaves. So they were unwilling slave owners (G Washington and T Jefferson). So there were 13 staunch slave supporters who wanted their slaves to be counted as a citizen. Why? So they could ensure the existence of slavery. The slave owners knew they could control the higher population of the north, because their slaves would balance the representation.

Yet we needed a new country, stronger than the original articles of confederation. So a compromise was reached. In determining the number of representatives, slaves will only count as 3/5 of a person. So it takes 15 slaves to make 9 people in the census. This was the best compromise the Continental Congress could reach.

Note: Though rare, there were Caucasians who were slaves due to debt and such. They would be counted as 3/5 as well. The Constitution does not say “African” or Black or any designation besides salve. Race was not the issue.

So now my question to answer is, if I vote for a person who does not “hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Am I compromising my principles? Making a compromise, not compromising my principasl.

Or you may ask “What are principals anyway?” – They are what makes me who I am. They are the reason I’m still married to a wonderful woman for 30 years. They are what allows me to forgive others, keep me honest, they are what makes me the nice guy I am. Principals define my character. Modern life seems to have passed on principals as a defining benchmark. We hear phrases like “What does it matter!” or “They will do what I tell them!!” and cheer. Not me. I can’t.

What I would like to see are people who believe that each person can do what they feel is correct, as long as no harm comes to others. Of course often times people think “harm” is defined by a comment that makes another person uncomfortable, politically in-correct. But harm is defined by results not feelings. Is a person’s property forcibly removed, is a person’s progress impeded, or is a person denied the ability to voice their own views? All of our current candidates seem to fall under the oppressive side.

So failing to have a candidate (Yes Gary Johnson even you) who would look to enforce a person’s individual freedom, over the collective comfort, I’m stuck in a compromise. Not voting is an option. But that serves no purpose.

So I will vote for the person I believe will do the most to bring America back from it’s downward spiral to socialism. To start to turn the wheel away from “collective conscience” and back to individual freedom.

Individual freedom is where the most can be helped. This country rose from a terrible civil war to become the brightest light on the planet in the 1890s. All because of individual freedom. Despite the Democratic Party’s insistence on Jim Crowe laws, and the re-segregation of the military and American Internment of German-American during World War 1 by Woodrow Wilson. Despite the over regulation of the American economy in the 1930’s making a recession that lasted for 3 years in the rest of the world, take more than 13 years in America. We still prevailed despite our government imposed shackles.

If you want a world where people are not abused, where the most people are brought out of poverty, where schools can actually teach something that is useful to kids, making them smarter and capable of carrying us to the next technological breakthrough, then vote for principles not for a winner. At times they may be one in the same this does not seem to be one of those items.

Having a civil discussion based on facts is what real exchanges are about. There is the hard part - “based on facts.” We the people don’t seem to know what those are any more. We are constantly bombarded with half of the equation expressed as all fact. I’m always game for discussion, but if you start telling people how to vote directly, understand you are trying to be the oppressor.

When I vote, and I will. I will sleep well knowing I voted for the best choice I could make. If America wants to create our own Babylon and sell ourselves to slavery, all I can do is follow my principles. They will show me the correct path. Sadly, the path less chosen.

Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.

It's not the differences, but the similarities that matter.

On July 7th, 2016 a lone gunman in Dallas Texas executed a well thought out attack on primarily Peace Officers. during a peaceful protest proclaiming “Black Lives Matter” after some horrible incidents in other parts of the country earlier that week. Some people call this black on white violence, but I beg to differ. It was hate of Law Enforcement, not race that drove this.
The shooter’s parents spoke to The Blaze and described how this patriotic American who joined the US Army to protect his country, came home a changed man. He went off to websites and became obsessed with “Racial-Justice” to the point he planned this attack. Was it the fault of sites like “Black Live Matter” that this person turned to violence? No. It was the act of what had become an unbalanced person ruled by emotions.
The very concept of hyphenating the word “Justice” is actually insane. Justice: “the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments” is by definition “Impartial.” This country was created because of the partiality of King George of Great Britton.
When America declared her independence from the Kingdom of Great Briton, the 13 Separate colonies declared as one country, The United States of America.
Why have we wondered from that model? Being only an American? - Class Politics
If you read the Declaration of Independence there are a few things to notice:

1. The purpose of the declaration: “When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”
   
   Separation from one authority, establishing their own united authority.
   
2. Why this authority is needed? – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
   
   Rights not recognized by “Him” King George.
   
3. The result: “That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed...”<

The idea of “unity” is not based on recognizing what is different among people, but what is the same. By promoting a “Separate but equal” mentality, we promote strife and cause division. Like Orwell’s “Animal Farm” some people end up more equal than others. If we were to focus on individual rights, real rights that are granted by the very status of being alive, not conjured rights supplied by force, we can agree on certain things.

Everybody is created by God or by happenstance to be equal. There is no qualifier based on race, ability or gender.

Each of us has the right to live, and we have the right to have liberty. Liberty is a sticky term because people confuse it with the freedom that some think is “cost-free” but it is not. Liberty is simply unencumbered in this case by the government, while freedom is a state of being. Not a thing granted.
In 1835 Texas won its independence from Mexico, the people referred to themselves as Texans, there was unity in purpose. And in 1845 they choose to become Americans by joining the still fledgling United States of America. They unified behind the ideals enshrined in the Constitution and Declaration of Independence. Many Texans had been Americans that left because of perceived oppression by the newly formed nation. Yet for their own freedom from the tyranny of Mexico, they choose to join the American Republic.
Why the history lesson? To show how unity really occurs. Not by the celebration of differences but the recognition of commonality. Not that we ought not to allow, even embrace our differences’! On the contrary, America in the late 1800s was the most inventive period anywhere in the world. Where great inventors like George Washington-Carver (Born into slavery 1861 in Missouri), Thomas Edison (Father Canadian, Mother 1st Generation American), Nikola Tesla (Serbian Immigrant), literally changed the course of culture and laid the groundwork for everything we have today.
It is much easier to go in the same direction when you look at what is the same. But we never hear about that. We are preached to about "Racial Justice" or "Social Justice.' How about just simple justice under law. Under the rock-solid principles not left to individual interpretation? So many want justice for themselves and oppression to others. When is your desire an infringement of another's rights? Is it an infringement of your rights when somebody says no to you? If you think it is, you don't know what a right is.
I contend if we started to vote for the principals, instead of the empty and false promises from either side that is what could unify us again. We can all agree on so many things.
Though I am no advocate of violence, I’ve come to agree with Robert A Heinlein, a 20th century Science Fiction Author. In “Starship Troopers” (December 1959), Mister Heinlein described voting as a violent act: “When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force, my friends, is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.” Markedly similar to Mao Tse-Tung’s" Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.” (Problems of War and Strategy, November 1938) But different in the idea that the violence of voting is not directly harmful. But it can be indirectly harmful.
If we as individuals considered voting to be violent, hence used the same consideration before voting as we would before defending ourselves, our world or at least our country would be a far better place.

Progressives make an effort to hide that they think voting is a violent act, they couch it in terms to sound better, “Social Justice,” “Economic In-Equality” and any number of cute phrases to hide the idea of theft from one person to give to another. These are all acts of violence. Solely because they are backed by the power of the government whose only recourse is violence!
What does this have to do with a lone gunman that shot 12 peace officers on July 7th? If equality under the law was our driving force, and not making somebody else more equal than others, this whole thing could be solved in short order.
I will not take sides with Black Lives Matter, the Law Enforcement Community or with a loan sniper who struck innocents on the July 7th event killing 5 and injuring so many others. I will applaud the police officers (regardless of genetics) that protected the protest participants (regardless of genetics) with their live because it was the officers chosen duty to do so.
I ask you to look to principles versus emotions. To unity of purpose versus diversity of condition. I am an American. I’m not a Nordic-American, a White-American, a Christian-American or an obese-American. Though these terms all describe me accurately, the truth is I am simply an American. Anybody who wishes to come here, and values the principals governing this land is welcome to be an American too.
The sooner we ca stop the sub-division of culture, allow people to celebrate their lives as each sees fit, yet promote that all people have the right to “life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” The sooner that we can stop this insanity of a division.
In America, you are not the sum of your genetics, but the total of your potential that matters. And "potential' can be changed. Our Constitution was designed to allow you to fill that potential to the reaches of your imagination. Can we stop imagining making another pay for history? Can we picture a free country that made this country as vibrant as the roaring '20s, a product of deregulation and reduced taxes during a worse recession than 1929?
To steal a tag line from the SyFy Channel ® – Imagine Greater.
Gregor - Back from the brink! From there and back again. A spiritual Hobbits journey.