One Shot, Don't Waste It

With the Mid-Term elections around the corner you probably have heard me encouraging people to become an “informed voter”. Easier said than done apparently, so I took it upon myself to go through an abbreviated process in an effort to give some meaning to what I’m talking about.

What do you care about?

The first thing I encourage everyone to do is to identify three topics that are important to you, while there are probably a lot more that are on your plate start with three and go from there. The three that I choose in order of priority were; securing our borders, health care reform and voter fraud. These are the issues that keep me up at night or quite frankly piss me off and here is why.

Meat & Potatoes

Securing our borders should be a no brainer, we have been invaded by illegal aliens for decades and we have passively sat and watched. It is a burden I feel we as tax payers should not have to bare. If someone wants to come to my country there is a legal system in place that has worked for years and currently used by countless people to become a citizen. If you do not want to follow the law in this case what makes you think I will view you as a productive member of our society and if you can’t do that then don’t bother. The Affordable Care Act was a terrible decision by this administration and I believe years from now history will judge them harshly, while somewhat satisfying it doesn’t really help our current situation so I would like to see it repealed and replaced with a competitive market. I believe it will benefit the most people and while there will always be some who fall into the cracks, I don’t believe the masses should suffer as a result. Open and fair competition is a great thing in any free market, it is the ultimate decision maker. The most important civic duty we as citizens can have is voting our government into and if necessary out of office. We need to take this seriously and I do not see anything wrong with an eligible voter having to produce identification that proves they are a legal citizen of this great country. If I need to show my identification to board an aircraft to prove that I am who I say I am then there is absolutely no reason why an eligible voter shouldn’t do the same.

The border

Right now, I’m really concerned about the next Governor of our Great State and as I research the main candidates I can already see a troubling pattern. Democrat Wendy Davis pretty much fails when it comes to conservative values, but I wanted to see her view point on this issues. The best that I could do with regards to my three topics was an extensive review of various public statements on the topics. On border security, she did send a statement supporting Governor Perry’s increase of budgetary spending to secure the border, but she has nothing up on our website about her stance so it is a bit difficult to pin her down. Conversely Republican Greg Abbott has stated openly that if elected he will do what our federal government hasn’t be able to do, which is secure our borders. Win for Abbott.

The health

On the issue the Affordable Care Act Davis believes that the ACA will help those who cannot get insurance and create more jobs in the medical field. I think in the 10 months since she made that claim we can all see the negative impact it has had on the job market. She is an outspoken supporter of the bill as well as expanding the federal government’s role in Texas health care. Abbott on the other hand has continually opposed the invasive nature of the ACA and was one of several State Attorney Generals who challenged it’s constitutionality. Win for Abbott.

And the ID

On the issue of voter ID Davis has supported Washington to declare voter ID laws unconstitutional as well as arguing that it disproportionately harms minority voters. If said minority voters are “illegally” residing in the US then yes, it will harm their votes since they are illegal. Protecting the integrity of our voting process is important to Abbott and he comments how there are ample way for voters to obtain voter ID’s. Win for Abbott.

This took me a couple of hours to review and fact check, but it was well worth it since it validated what my beliefs about Davis were, and it gave me more insight into Abbott. I will continue to research, but hopefully this gives folks a better idea of what becoming an informed voter means.

Democracy cannot succeed unless those who express their choice are prepared to choose wisely. The real safeguard of democracy, therefore, is education.” Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States