26 JUL 2024 -- Political / Election Thoughts

 Although I tend to be relatively conservative, I am neither Democrat nor Republican. My personal motto has long been "If it ain't broke, don't fix it. If it IS broke, stop belly-aching about it and fix it yourself if you can, or have someone you trust fix it for you." 

That being said, I don't like either Trump or Harris for the 2024 presidential election. I see Mr. Trump as a self-aggrandizing power-monger who wants to turn the United States of America into USA, Inc. with him as President/CEO for life and absolutely NO restraints on what he can do. I have no intention on doing what others have done and shaming him for his questionable draft exemptions; that is between him and his conscience, and it is a half-century in the past. The same goes for his personal relationships, messy as they appear to have been. I am concerned, however, about him reportedly looking into awarding himself the Medal of Honor, as well as his stated belief that he can declassify documents simply by thinking about doing so.

Although I don't know much about her, I also have an issue with Mrs. Harris. At one point after Biden was elected president, she said something to the effect that if she had run for and been elected president, she would have instituted draconian gun control laws to the point of forming a special national police force whose primary mandate was to seize firearms in the possession of American citizens. (I strongly doubt that it would have worked, for several reasons... but the intent was there.) She also seemed to be okay with President Biden's rapidly failing health, knowing that she was only a heartbeat away from becoming president and thus in a position to attempt her plans against law-abiding American citizens.

I'm in my late 50s now and no longer the impressionable young man that I was while in the Coast Guard; I have yet to see a recent candidate for president -- ANY candidate -- present any sort of actual "common-sense, roll up our sleeves and get to work" political platform. I am more than happy to do my part, but I will absolutely NOT take part in any plan dictated by an autocrat.