So It's a Two Party System?

It's time to vote again. Time to exercise our constitutional right to elect our government officials, the people representing us for the years to come. Problem is...I'm not sure any of them actually "represent" me. As a conservative I have a set of core values that I vote for. Smaller government, fewer taxes...just to name a couple. Traditionally these conservative stances have been lobbied for by Republicans, but as of late it seems as though both parties have given up on them. The Democrat party has drifted so far left that Stalin's on the ticket, sadly, the Republicans have also followed the slide leftwards (yeah, just made that word up). So, it appears that we have two options: Socialists or Republicrats. I suppose you could vote for an independent, but lets be honest, you may as well light your ballot on fire or vote for Nader (he's running for something, right?). Either way you're throwing away a vote.

So what's a self respecting voter to do? I've heard people say that they're voting for "X" candidate to stick it to the candidate of their party. Guess it's their way of showing their displeasure. I'm not sure I follow the logic though. I'm not willing to screw myself for two to four years just to show my congressman/judge/councilman that I'm dissatisfied with his service. It's becoming more and more obvious to me as I get older that I'm voting for the platform more and more, and for the candidate less and less. Truth be told, politicians by nature are not to be trusted. They'll all sell you a bill of goods to get into office, then they'll do just enough to be re-elected. That's the system we have, and I don't see a radical shift in it coming any time soon (though it would be nice to automatically disqualify any political candidates that were lawyers at one time). The only thing a man can do is vote for what he believes in. As I stated above I'm in favor of smaller government and fewer taxes, on top of that I'm for a strong military, strong national security (namely at the borders), and for people pulling their own weight. Now the likelihood of electing a candidate that's going to mirror my beliefs completely is slim to none (probably because he'd be a Libertarian), so I've got to find one that's close...in this case, they'll be Republican. If I were in favor of Huge Government, exorbitant taxes, UN appeasement, nuclear Iran and N. Korea, and overall limp-wristedness I'd be looking for a Democratic candidate, because all the good communists have gone underground.

So there it is. That's the extent of my election coverage. Who's going to come out on top? Who knows. I know who I'm pulling for overall, but no one with any integrity can predict who will win. Let's just hope that if the "other" party wins that we're not all wearing burkas, speaking french, and standing in line at the grocery distribution center with our bread vouchers this time next year.