Trolling the Internet occasionally leads to a head-turning article that deserves wide readership. I recently found a rather brief statement from an unnamed author who decided to tell anyone who cared what will motivate him (or her) when inking a ballot in November. What he (or she) stated is “right on” as the saying goes. I confess to adding a few thoughts of my own as I offer the following preferences.
I will not be voting for a man or a personality. I will vote in hopes of regaining adherence to the principles upon which this nation was built — less government, not more. I will search the ballot for the candidate whose intentions come closest to awareness that America became great, not because of what government did, but because of what government was prevented from doing by the Constitution. I will vote for retention of the right to keep and bear arms and the freedom to worship mankind’s “Creator,” whom our Declaration of Independence rightly identified as the source of basic rights.
I will vote for allowing anyone to rise above whatever circumstances surround him (or her), and become successful while not harming anyone else. I intend to vote for my children to have the opportunity to succeed and for my grandchildren to learn honest history and obey needed laws. I will vote to keep our nation’s borders open to everyone who enters while abiding by proper laws and closed to everyone who ignores such regulations. I will vote for someone who will use our nation’s military, not as a policeman for the world, but employed if needed to repel attacks and keep our nation free.
I intend to vote for retaining the Electoral College so that states dominated by change artists in a few heavily populated states don’t control the result. I will vote for the Supreme Court to rule according to the duly enacted laws of this land and not invent tortuous verbiage that opens doors to dangerous changes in our laws and practices. I will not vote for someone who insists that I tolerate unspeakable conduct and practices. I will vote for the teaching of honest history, not distortions of truth and reliance on made-up mumbo jumbo posing as fact. I will vote to recognize that life begins at conception and that all newborns deserve sufficient care until gaining the ability to fend for themselves.
Of necessity, I will vote to oppose some laws, policies, and candidates who support historically proven dangers to legitimate freedom. I am against open borders and needless and frequently dangerous entanglements and pacts. I will vote against a welfare system that makes slaves to government out of its recipients. And I will look for a candidate who supports a prison system designed to rehabilitate wrongdoers, not see them released and able again to commit mayhem. I will vote against socialism in all its forms and all its resulting controls. I will vote against the practices of socialism that destroy a nation’s viability and lead it to became a police state, the very outcome that has recently converted once-thriving Venezuela into a copy of what Cuba has been for six decades.
I realize that leading candidates for the presidency in 2020 may give lip service to some or many of my preferences. So I will vote for whoever is believably closest to what I believe is good for America and all its people. And I will continue to long for the day when candidates for high office not only state agreement with my choices but honestly intend to do what is good for America.
John F. McManus is president emeritus of The John Birch Society.
