My Thoughts on this Election...

My thoughts have shifted greatly this election season. I went from thinking it possible to have the most compassionate president America has ever seen to considering voting for a third party very seriously, to surrendering to the madness.

I am always examining the evidence, so my thoughts may change by the time I actually vote, but at this point we pretty much have as much information about the candidates as we can have unless something new should arise.

First I will discuss Hillary. I do not like her. She is very insincere. At the beginning of the campaign she went on a tour to find out what her platform should be. While it could be admirable to do such a thing, it also shows a lack of self conviction. Bernie Sanders did not need to take a tour to create his platform. He was wholeheartedly convicted of his issues long before he ever ran for president.

Hillary has consistently changed her platform to adopt policies closer to Bernie's because of his success. The problem with that is ultimately her lack of conviction. I have little faith she will carry through on any of her campaign promises.

She tries to take the middle ground between Wall Street and the average American, but she does not get that there is no middle ground. Wall Street wants all the money and basically wants citizens to be their slaves. Her pandering to them will lead to America's downfall.

She has a hit and miss record regarding war decisions. She seems to simply go with whatever everyone else is feeling and that is often times a bad thing. I do not believe Hillary would be able to avoid a war like Obama has.

I do not find her to have as much compassion and seems very jaded by her time in politics. I also know that she has done some very shady things to become the nominee. In other words, she is a typical corrupt politician.

And I believe anyone holding Bill's infidelity against her should ask themselves how they would feel if their spouse cheated on them and then everyone blamed you. Through my research I have found there are two ways to look at Hillary's actions regarding Bill's infidelity. You can view it as trying to cover it up and bully Bill's mistresses or you can view it as a natural reaction when faced with the woman who your husband cheated on you with. It's really in the eye of the beholder. I personally see it as a natural reaction to being faced with one's husband's mistress and I have a hard time blaming her for the things she said regarding them.

As a side note, unrelated to this but brought up in this regard, I do not believe there is any good evidence Bill ever raped anyone. The one claiming he did changed her story and claimed she received nothing from the Clinton's. I don't know which story of the mistress to believe so I am choosing innocent until proven guilty.

In any other election, Hillary would almost easily be the worst candidate... but then there is Trump.

I believe anyone who believes Trump and Hillary are equally horrible candidates are over simplifying the issues. They certainly both have their faults, but Trump is far and away the worst here.

The reason I did not bring up abortion in regards to Hillary is because there is no difference between her and Trump. Anyone who buys that Trump will spend 3 seconds thinking about abortion has not been paying attention to anything he's said prior to declaring his run for office. If anyone was ever using the issue of abortion to get into the White House, it is him. He's been a Planned Parenthood supporter for decades and even complimented them during the first Republican debate. So kid yourself if you want and believe he's made some miraculous turn around, but I do not buy it for a second.

Probably because next to every thing Trump says is a lie. The first evidence I submit to you is his Politifact record. You could try to say they are bias, but that doesn't explain why almost all Republicans and Democrats have nearly the same percentages on truth and lies... except Trump. Trump has about the same record as internet memes... And honestly, I'm pretty sure internet memes are where Trump gets most of his information. I mean really, Cruz's father shot Kennedy? Really?!

Hillary has told lies, that is for sure. But when compared to the sheer volume of lies that Trump has told, Hillary does not even come close.

Then we can discuss the 32+ lies in the first presidential debate or his equally bad record in the second one. The inability to remember what he himself said. Most people remember that he said "uh, yeah, I guess" when Howard Stern asked him if he thought we should go to war with Iraq. What most people forget is that he immediately followed that with "we should have gone in sooner." He did not just want to go to war with Iraq, he did not know why it took us so long.

Trump has already had his share of sexual harassment suits. But when added with the context of bragging about sexually assaulting women, it is hard not to believe at least some of those cases are legit. And anyone who thinks that was "locker room" talk is either a sexual predator or needs to report some people because what he said is illegal. Then when asked about it in the debate, Trump did not even seem to understand that what he said was sexual assault, nor did his apology include anything about denouncing sexual assault.

Trump cannot negotiate peace with the Republican party. How well do you think he'll do with a hostile foreign power? It is all fun and games until he is President and tells a Naval Destroyer to blow Iranian civilians out of the water for making inappropriate hand gestures. Then we go to war. And apparently all anyone has to do to stop Trump from peace negotiations is withhold the plane ladder.

If Trump got his way, he would be a ruthless dictator. He wants to appoint a special task force to put Hillary in jail even though she has already been tried on a federal level. Say whatever you like about the 30,000 emails but we don't know what was in them and it was not her deciding to delete them, it was her attorneys. They complied with the subpoena. If we have a problem with something it should be the subpoena as it was worded. And if you want to blame a person, you'll need to blame her attorneys as they were the ones making the decisions.

But assigning a task force to jail your opponents is default dictator behavior. That's exactly how things work in Africa.

Trump is a compulsive liar who will start a war his first week in office. He's stated multiple times he's willing to use nuclear weapons. He has serious problems.

Ultimately I feel the way the Pinocchio fact checker states in an interview. Hillary is playing chess. Trump is playing checkers... badly.

I held out hope that a third party (anyone but Gary Johnson) would rise in the polls, but that hope is gone. None, including Gary Johnson, are even doing as well as Ross Parrot did in the 90s. And it's far too late in this election to believe that will change.

I wanted to vote third party anyway, but I feel like at this point that would be merely trying to avoid being blamed for what either candidate will do. But that feels like a cop out to me at this point. I know Hillary or Trump will win, and I know Trump is just horrifying. We can bounce back from Hillary, but I fear Trump will start a war we can't win. And while he is alienating our allies, the war will be brought here.

I can't cop out on this. I have to cast a vote that is most likely to keep Trump out of office.

Healthcare in our hands, not uncaring insurance companies!

You know an Amendment is going the right direction when the people who don't care about you are pumping millions of dollars into a campaign to stop it. When you see anything that says "Vote No on Amendment 69" you can rest assured that it has been paid for by the insurance companies who enjoy ripping you off.

As I have pointed out before, the practices of insurance companies makes it clear they know they have your business and will rip you and the company you work for off as much as they can legally get away with. They do not care about your health and well being and would much rather reject your claims than approve them.

Those same companies are pouring millions into anti-ColoradoCare ads.

Why are they so opposed to it? Well, they would not be able to steal your money anymore. We, as a state, would be in control of our health care, not the corporations seeking only to increase their profit margins from one quarter to the next. We would be able to make health care decisions based on what our state wants and not what those trying to get our money want.

Insurance companies make decisions based on what will increase their profits in the short term. These short sighted goals leave customers being thrown under the bus so that share holders can shake their heads in approval because they increased their profits 3%.

Taking decision making out of their hands and putting it in the hands of the state means our needs will be met over any other goals. We get to decided how our coverage works. We get to decide where our care comes from.

Vote "Yes" on Amendment 69!

The Current Health Insurance System is not meant to protect you!

Our current insurance policies are not meant to protect the consumer. They are meant to protect the insurance companies. If you have ever lost coverage because of something stupid, you know what I mean.

My family lost coverage one time because an email (of which I get hundreds a day) slipped through the cracks and unlike all years previous, I had to re-sign up that year. There were no phone calls, no letters in the mail, just an email. We lost coverage and could not get it back for a whole year.

Then we got to learn about the glorious world of independent insurers. Man, those guys are rip off artists. We had to over pay for a horrible plan which did not really help us much except for insuring that we would not have to pay millions, just thousands if we got sick.

Basically we were one illness/injury away from permanent debt that entire year. Why? It certainly was not to protect us. It was to protect the insurance company. This year one of my co-workers did not want to send in all of his private information until the security of that information was assured. Because of that, he may lose his coverage.

Amendment 69 would eliminate all of that. No screenings, no paper work hassles, no re-signing up, no calculating co-pays. If you are a Colorado citizen, you have full coverage... AND it is way cheaper for most people!

Our current system is not only abusive to the low income, its horrible for the middle class as well. Amendment 69 would bring back consumer protection and allow us (colorado citizens) to decide how our healthcare works. Not insurance companies that could not care any less about the health of your family.

Vote Yes on Amendment 69!

Amendment 69 will save you thousands a year.

I am going to get straight to the point on this one. I really like the idea that people without the ability to pay medical bills will be able to get healthcare under Amendment 69, but what is great about it is they can get their healthcare while saving me money! It is a double win!

I did the exact figures today. Basically, Amendment 69 would cut my health insurance premium costs in half straight off the bat. And if I calculated no other savings aside from that, Amendment 69 would save me $1,360.86 a year. That alone is worth me wanting to pass this amendment.

Now when I add my deductible in (something we seem to reach every year since we have had children) plus the random copays we have to pay,  my savings go up to $4,400.86. I mean, that is a life changing amount of savings. People could buy cars with the amount of savings this could bring.

The interesting thing about this is, that the lower your income, the bigger your savings.

If you want to calculate your savings, they have a website to do so. It tells you exactly how much taxes you will pay versus how much you already pay in health insurance.

http://www.coloradocare.org/for-you/calculate-your-savings/

This is only one of the many reasons I will definitely be marking "Yes" on Amendment 69 in November. But I plan to write more about the other reasons in days to come plus answer some of the criticism I have heard of the amendment.

Judge Your Own Sins, Not Others

The loudest ignored teaching of Jesus and the New Testament. “How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is a log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” Matthew 7:4-5, Luke 6:42. Some have suggested this is regarding any individual sin, so if I am not a drunkard, I can point out a drunkard's sin. This however is not the case. This was said to the Pharisees. They we depraved in their heart and not outwardly. If that were true, Jesus would have had no problems with the Pharisees putting down all of the sinners who followed him. But because even the Pharisees had depraved hearts, they should not be trying to pick out anyone's speck.

Often times Christians (myself included) get delusions of grandeur and place ourselves on a pedestal as if we are the keepers of what is right and wrong. In reality, we were always meant to focus on our own sins and not others. That was the problem Jesus had with the Pharisees. They felt like they were the judges of who was righteous and who was not. And the Pharisees were a very exclusive club for the “righteous.” Jesus constantly fought with them because of how they treated others.

Paul was once a Pharisee, which makes the chapter I am about to go into even more surprising. I was listening to some commentary today and they used Romans to suggest that homosexuals deserve death. Quoted by itself, it sounds very damning but in reality, it is no more damning than the rest of Romans is to every Christian. Every sinner deserves death and everyone is a sinner (Romans 3).

When we point out someone else's sin, it is very much like a prisoner making fun of another prisoner for what they did to get in prison. It does not really matter how they got there, they are both in the same place.

Now it is time to blow the mind of all those letter of the Law people. Sin is different for every person. If you read the 14^th chapter of Romans, this fact is inescapable. He spends the entire chapter explaining that some people can eat meat sacrificed to idols and it is not a sin. While for other people if they eat the same meat will sin. Some people would sin if they did not celebrate certain days while others would sin if they did celebrate the same days.

James even agrees with Paul here. “So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.” James 4:17. The spirit of the Law is written on our hearts and God has written His own unique writing on each of our hearts to serve God’s purpose.

To top it off, Paul instructs those who eat and those who do not eat to not try to change the other believer’s practices (Romans 14:22). Both are following God’s conviction and if they did contrary to their conviction they would be sinning.

Why? Because the Holy Spirit convicts us. Not you, not me, not the Law, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin (John 16:8). For us to decide that it is our job to convict someone of sin is to suggest the Holy Spirit is not doing a good enough job and needs our help.

We are to point people to Jesus Christ. When the Holy Spirit comes into their life, He will convict them as He sees fit. It is impossible to receive the Holy Spirit and not be convicted, but what they are convicted of is between them and God.

Does this mean God can convict people of contradictory things? Possibly, but I tend to think there are things God chooses simply not to convict people of. But the important thing is that we understand that these convictions are given to us personally and not to others. We should not be condemning people for their sins. Jesus came to this world to save it, not to judge it (John 3:17). How can we possibly say it our job to judge it when even Jesus who has such authority, chose not to?

"Let us therefore make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification." -Romans 14:19

Word of caution

If anyone read this and thought, "cool, I get to make up my own mind if something is a sin or not" then you did not read this correctly. The Holy Spirit convicts us, not us. If we are only convicted about things we want to be convicted about, then we are not being convicted by the Holy Spirit.

So when do we confront someone?

Both Jesus (Matthew 18:15-17) and Paul (1 Corinthians 5) do point out there are times when we should confront a brother or sister in Christ. First of all, they should be a Christian. If they are not, then we should not say anything. If they are outside of Christ, then it is not our job to tell them anything regarding sin (1 Corinthians 5:12).

Second, it should be something obviously a sin. Paul confronts a member of the Corinthian church about sleeping with his mother-in-law. Something that would have been appalling even for non-Christians. If you feel like you should criticize someone's music selection, you have missed the point. It is only in extreme cases that confrontation is needed.

Why Democratic Socialism is soon to be very important.

Despite what people believe, Democratic Socialism is not opposed to Capitalism. It actually compliments Capitalism. Democratic Socialism is democratically deciding as a society that certain things (like health care) are rights for every citizen (as many of the worlds happiest nations have found out).

It is not full socialism which puts everything under the governments regulation.

But Bernie Sanders is pushing Democratic Socialism because he has fairly amazing abilities of foresight when he predicted ISIS filling the political vacuum and the great recession. He sees what many young people see but older generations have a hard time comprehending. It's a concept that is obvious to the younger generation because we have been born into it. It is a very simple truth that is inevitable at our current pace of technological improvement.

We are all about to be replaced with robots and artificial intelligence.

Think you are in an industry that is safe from such advancement? Think again. What are you? A stock broker? Please, you will be the first to go. Are you into coding, like me? Sorry, we have literally worked ourselves out of a job.

Maybe you are creative and like to write books. Well, A.I. loves to write books more than you do! Songwriters are safe though, right? Wrong, they have already been replaced and you did not even notice. Movies? Yeah, they are out too.

You can always fall back on working at McDonald's though, right? Hmmm, maybe not. Walmart? I would not count on it.

Sure, there may always be some humans doing those jobs, but they will be a niche and novelty, not the norm.

All that to say what the younger generation already knows. We will be replaced. Sure, it will take some time and there will be resistance but ultimately progress will happen. And mainly because Capitalist businessmen cannot ignore the cost savings.

So what happens when we have all been properly put out of a job and we are not billionaires? We will have to rely on the government or the corporations who no longer have a need for us. By then it will probably be something fairly simple. With solar panels getting more efficient and electric cars going farther and 3D printing of housing drastically reducing building costs and 3D printed food becoming super cheap the cost of living is bound to plummet.

When this happens, the top 1% may hold not just the majority of the wealth in America (as they currently do) but almost all of it. At which point we will have two options.

The first option would be the Republican response. Sorry, you cannot earn any money and are a failure. You can go into debt the rest of your life and be a corporate slave. You will own nothing and have no hope of ever paying off your debt.

The second option is to rely on the government. In such a scenario, I can see why the Dutch are testing out a $20,000 a year guaranteed income. The majority of America may need a guaranteed income in the near future.

Because in this future we are creating, Democratic Socialism is the only form of freedom we will enjoy.

I am not pro-life or pro-choice.

The more I study politics the more I see that picking a side is nearly impossible without taking on attributes we do not agree with. Sadly we come up with boxes and we put everyone in them. Either people are pro-life or pro-choice, there is no other categories.

This is not true despite what people would believe. We can have our own ideas and we do not have to agree with the labels people put on us. By the time I finish this article though, I can guarantee that the pro-lifers will say I am pro-choice and the pro-choicers will say I am pro-life. If that is the case then I feel I have done my job well.

I have self identified as pro-life for a very long time, but there are things about the pro-life movement that just does not make sense to me. I do believe life begins at conception. I believe that deliberately ending that life is murder. However, I am not against sex education and I am not against contraceptives. I am also pro-welfare (which is some how oddly related).

The pro-life movement has taken on this banner of abstinence in a very Pharisee style move. Though as Christians we are instructed not to judge those outside the church (1 Corinthians 5:12-13). It is not our job to try and make all sins illegal. And trying to make the outside world stop having sex is about as useful as holding out your hand to stop a freight train.

What is your goal?

At this point in my life, I have a very specific political goal. To reduce the number of abortions to as small as possible. This, strangely enough, does not seem to be the goal of either pro-life or pro-choice.

I know because I have asked pro-lifers if they could reduce the number of abortions by 42%, would they vote for a pro-choice candidate. The answer, every single time, is "no." And is followed by some answer about not liking the idea of teenagers having sex or not liking contraceptives at all.

So there it is. Reducing the number of abortions is clearly not a pro-life goal, or if it is, it is not at the top of the list of priorities.

It is certainly not a pro-choicer's goal as asking the same question with roles reversed is obviously "no" as a pro-choicer's goal is to have choice where a pro-life candidate would take that choice away.

Pro-Life political agenda will not reduce the abortion rate.

The abortion rate, whether illegal or legal remains about the same.The New York Times discusses a rather global study that was done and the legal status of abortion has very little impact on abortion rates. And in some cases, making it legal actually reduces the abortion rate.

Why is this? Because illegal abortion is usually coupled with low access to birth control.

So what are you going to do about it?

I am going to vote for Bernie Sanders. Bernie Sanders is very pro-choice and while I do not agree with the ideology that a fetus is not life or a person, Senator Sander's idea of Universal Health Care has the potential to reduce the number abortions about 40%.

With Universal Health Care, women could have unrestricted access to birth control that could last years. And how do we know that will reduce the abortion rate so dramatically? Well, they have performed this experiment right here in my own back yard.

In Colorado they began and very long experiment where they offered poor women and teenagers free long term birth control. And yeah, they found they were able to reduce the number of abortions by 42%! That is phenomenal!

If you are reading this article and your goal is to reduce the number of abortions drastically, the only candidate who has the potential to even make a dent in the rate is Bernie Sanders.

Concessions

Is this solution without its moral implications? No. I will concede that premarital sex will abound with such policies. But we live in a fallen world and if it means abortion rates are reduced by 40% then those outside the church can do as they please. God will judge them, not me. If almost half of abortions are avoided, that many babies are not killed. That is more important to me than attempting to impose Christian morals on non-Christians.

I will continue to preach nothing but abstinence prior to marriage to the youth who attend the church I am at. God clearly designed sex for marriage and the abortion rate existing at all is evidence of that. But I am not going to make the world perfect. We can only do our best until Jesus returns and reduces the abortion rate to zero.

What are you?

Ask yourself why you identify with whatever label you have placed on yourself. Really ask yourself what your goal is with that label and then make sure that label is really trying to accomplish the same goal you have. In my case, I do not fit into either label.