I hope everyone who is a resident of California remembered to get out there and vote yesterday. I sure as hell forgot until I went to the grocery store in the early evening to do some shopping and took a look at the ridiculous sales tax on my receipt.

Glad to see the state legislature has come up with some innovative ways to solve a budget crisis in a state that is simultaneously one of the wealthiest in the country and already has the highest sales tax in the nation.

Anyway, the increase in sales tax is old news. It happened over a month ago, I thought last evening, and there is nothing I can do about it. Then on my way out of the store I noticed the cover of the L.A. Times where, in a rare showing of vital information, it mentioned the 6 measures on the ballot for the election.

Being both the concerned voter as well as the newly formed yuppie that I am, I decided that I needed to find my polling place pronto and so pulled out my new phone. They are always changing the polling places in Los Angeles County, and this time instead of a church, my polling place was in the lobby of a senior home on a heavily trafficked street with no parking.

Now, I have been to some strange polling places in my time: Knights of Columbus buildings, someone’s garage on a random residential street, apartment building entryways, gas stations, etc. So after yesterday’s experience in the senior home, I started thinking about my criteria for a polling place. I would think that most people just want to get in, punch the little card and get back to their lives. When you go to vote, it should be painless, hassle-free, and empowering. You should leave that gas station proud that you have done your duty as a citizen. You should not have to be confronted with visions of the tail-end of life: hacking old men, oxygen tanks, wailing senior citizens, Wheel of Fortune at top volume. I know we will all grow old and possibly end up in some kind of “facility” (another reason to make sure you treat your kids well), but I would like to request that all polling places be essentially shut off from the outside world. Instead of feeling proud about myself while exiting the senior home lobby yesterday, I wanted to weep all over my “I Voted” sticker and blow my nose in the ballot receipt.

Anyway, onto the issues. I’m not going to go into some long-winded political rant (I have friends who are much better at that), so I will start by saying that I am a Libertarian. I have noticed in recent years that people are somewhat guarded about the political party they align with and who or what they may have voted for (I can understand this given the past 8 years). In my home it was often treated as a taboo topic by my mother, and since then whenever the topic of who or what you voted for comes up, my instinct is to treat it like a sexually transmitted disease:

“Oh, well, I’d rather not discuss it.”

So, in an effort to break out of this habit, here are the results and how I voted:

1A – Result: No   My Vote: No

1B – Result: No   My Vote: No

1C – Result: No   My Vote: No

1D – Result: No   My Vote: No

1E – Result: No   My Vote: No

1F – Result: Yes  My Vote: Yes

Now, I’m all for everyone exercising their right to vote, but I can sympathize with those individuals who feel that their vote never counts due to the makeup of our electoral system. However, to those individuals, I offer this piece of advice: Always vote on state propositions. Voting on propositions is one of the few ways to really see your vote count, and the effects of rejecting or passing propositions are often directly felt by voters.

The L.A. Times sees the outcome of Tuesday’s election as a continuation of “Californians’ long-standing pattern of demanding what is ultimately irreconcilable, all the more so in an economic downturn: lower taxes and higher spending” (see article here). They go on to say that “Californians showed they were unwilling to scale back their demands in tight times: Voters turned down propositions that would have freed up money that they set aside years ago for mental-health and children’s programs.” I, as well as other Libertarians, see it as a clear signal to the governor and the legislature that Californians are demanding a dramatic change in budgeting and where tax dollars should go. In effect, spending smarter, not harder.

I don’t see these results as another example of Californians being fickle and wanting everything for nothing. That is a defeatist view that offers no real solutions, just blame.

I’m wondering what other people think? Leave a comment below.

To learn more about why I voted the way I did, check out the California Libertarian Party website or read their press release here.

Now that the post-inauguration fervor has died down, and Obama is starting to make some decisions, nominating some people to his cabinet, getting some blowback, and trying to pass a stimulus package, I wanted to step back and take a look at the day Barack Obama officially became the 44th President of The United States.

I might as well get this out of the way first: I did not vote for Barack Obama, and before you hit your “Back” button, I did not vote for John McCain either. I have my own reasons for why I voted for my candidate, but I’m not going to dig into a pile of political issues here

I will be blunt: George W. Bush has left this country in a shambles compared to what it was when he came into office in 2000. No president could ever do a perfect, much less a great job in office because it’s a literally impossible job to succeed at in any normal sense of the word. We all know that no other president in history, since approval ratings first came about, has had a lower rating than George W. Bush. This man had the country’s heart given to him on a silver platter, and he dropped the plate, propelling shards into every American home. 9-11 happened and America was ready to mobilize, to gather our collective spirit and patriotism in honor of what we believe to be the greatest country that has ever existed, and what did he do? He regressed back to the mentality of an angry college freshman, a maniacal evangelist, labeling countries as “Evil,” trying to impress people rather than do what was right.

And he lied. As most politicians will do.

Even in the face of the truth, he stood by his lie. He knew he was cornered, but with the weight of the entire country on your shoulders, what would you do? Admit you screwed up? The principles our founding fathers laid out say that, yes, you are indeed supposed to say you screwed up, but you are also meant to forge ahead, steadfast, always trying to keep the well-being of the citizenry in mind and working to make us feel some semblance of confidence in you. We have to learn to expect our leaders to make mistakes; we would be remiss not to always keep in mind that they are human beings like the rest of us.

Our national media has destroyed the way in which politicians are meant to be viewed. Our leaders have become caricatures: Larger-than-Life, above-the-law figures. This in turns makes them behave poorly. They commit crimes, become embroiled in scandals, and basically act above the law. They are enabled to behave this way due to how we are forced to view them through our media. Of course our freedom of choice is always present. We do not have to pay attention to the media, or, at best, we can pay attention but always be sure to form our own interpretations and opinions. But the standard rule is, if you were a bad person before you became a politician, skirting laws, easily manipulated by wealth or the dream of success, believing you could get away with anything due to your status, odds are that you will continue down that path once you enter into politics.

George W. Bush is no different. His first and worst crime was thinking he could handle the office of President. Once he had convinced himself that he could handle it, everything went downhill, and all of his bad decisions led to some of the worst (let’s face it) crimes ever perpetrated by a President of The United States. I doubt Bush’s own family enjoyed his time in office.

Now I do not agree with all of Obama’s policies. When it comes to my personal leanings, I will just use the popular terminology and say that I am a left-leaning Republican. That basically means I don’t like wasting my hard-earned money on government programs that have yet to deliver what they promised, but I don’t like the government telling me what to do in my personal or religious life. If I live here to be free, let me be free. I certainly do not agree with all of the recent bailouts, which places me in opposition with our new President and much of Congress.

This question is for those of you who voted for Barack Obama: Despite Bush having served for eight years and being constitutionally forced to leave office, if the Democratic Party had selected John Kerry as their candidate once again, would you have voted for him? George W. Bush was already failing miserably back in 2004: he had a terrible environmental record, he had lied to the American public about WMDs in Iraq, and he had already literally invaded another country without answering to those who had re-elected him. Things simply became worse from then on. So why was he re-elected? Why didn’t the Democrats vote for “Change” four years ago?

Did Kerry not run a good enough campaign for you? Did he not inspire confidence in you? Did he have poor policies? Bad speaking skills? Was he too old? Not good looking enough? Not charismatic enough? Or finally (and I only ask this because with the turnout of voters this past November, there had to be a large number of individuals who had previously voted Republican but now voted Democrat), was he too white?

Was the American voting public so drunk with desire to get George W. Bush the hell away from the controls that we would have elected anyone? In my opinion, by the time November 2008 rolled around, this country would have elected a brick to take office. Do you think Barack Obama is really the “Change” we not only need, but have been searching for throughout the last four years?