Much like a bad burrito on a Saturday night politics has reared its ugly head across the country. Sure politics is something that is always there, kind of like dirty laundry but ultimately most people, rightly or wrongly, only give a crap every four years. Every year the two parties of consequence come out and lie to our faces, telling us that this is the most important election ever. The each claim the other party’s nominees are not fit to run our country, when in reality neither party’s nominees are probably fit to run a McDonald’s let alone the United States of America.

I myself tend to stay out of political discussions, although with the amount of blogs about politics I am finding myself drawn in further and further. I feel your political choices are your choices and that you should not need to defend them to anyone. However I felt it was time to at least lay out where I stand.

I am 30 years old. I never graduated college because I never felt challenged enough by it and got bored. I married a little over six years ago. Like our parents before us we are a middle class family, not upper middle class and not lower middle class but dab smack in the middle, middle class. My wife (a school teacher) and I (an aspiring writer) live in the suburbs of Philadelphia in a house that we bought six years ago. We own two cars and a 27-foot boat that hasn’t seen the water since we bought it four years ago due to my never-ending laziness and utter lack of mechanical expertise. We have three kids, all under the age of five, and two dogs.

I am a registered Republican but I don’t vote straight party like many people do. I tend to look over the issues and vote for candidates who run on platforms I support or at least the candidate whom I feel will go against my views the least. My voting record is rather disjointed as I have not ever stuck to one particular party. In the 1996 presidential election I voted for Bill Clinton. In the 1998 Pennsylvania gubernatorial election I voted for Peg Luksik, a member of the Constitution Party. In 2000 I voted straight Republican, voting for George W. Bush in the presidential election and Sam Katz in the Philadelphia mayoral race. In 2002 & 2006 I voted for democrat Ed Rendell in the Pennsylvania Gubernatorial elections. I also voted for Bush in the 2004 elections simply because I felt John Kerry didn’t align with my views on many issues. If Hilary Clinton had won the Democratic nomination I would have been voting for her but as such I will be voting for John McCain come November.

That’s not to say I agree with all the ideologies that these men (or women) have held. That’s also not to say that I support everything they have done. I don’t think Bush has done a great job on a good many things but I also don’t think he has been quite as bad as many people make him out to be. He has made a good many mistakes but in reality who hasn’t made mistakes as president. There is a long list of issues that people have with George W. Bush but the biggest one always seems to be the Iraq War. Bush was ultimately put into a bad position because of 9/11. The American people are a strong, proud group. When 9/11 happened we were at first shocked but that shock eventually turned to anger and with that anger, the good majority of people (myself included), wanted a retaliation of some sort. Our anger put him in a spot; rightly or wrongly he invaded Iraq, claiming they had something to do with 9/11 and was harboring weapons of mass destruction. In the end that turned out to be a lie and many people hate him for it but I can say that at the time I felt it was the right decision. Hindsight is always 20/20.

In any case this isn’t about George W. Bush. It is about me and where, as well as why, I align myself in the political system. So let’s get onto the Declaration of Me.

I am not a supporter of federal power. I don’t like Washington telling me what to do. While George W. Bush has undoubtedly become drunk with power (and some would say that the Republican party by association has as well) one of the core tenants of the Republican Party is to impose more limitations on federal power in the government with the state and local governments playing a larger role.

I am a big supporter of personal decision-making and people ultimately being responsible for their own actions and decisions. I don’t believe that economic prosperity can ever come from the government; it comes from hard work on an individual basis.

I support free trade, and businesses both big and small. And ultimately I support minimal interference by the government in the economy.

I suppose you could call me a fiscal conservative being as the core principals of that are lower government spending and a lower federal debt. I can’t argue that the Bush administration has been fiscally conservative because they haven’t been. However being fiscally conservative isn’t something that Barack Obama seems to have any plans for either.

I do not believe in financial handouts and I do not support the Welfare program in its current state because it does not work. The Welfare program should be used to help people get back on their feet; too many people are abusing it with nothing to stop them.

I also do not support labor unions. I believe they have outlived their usefulness and are so politically motivated now that they don’t help those that they were originally organized to protect.

I do however support universal health care or better-worded socialized health care. Going to the hospital should not cost you anything. The Republican Party and many democrats believe that privatization is the way to go on this issue, however the United States Health Care system is broken. Insurance companies charge insanely high premiums to their clients while blocking essential care. Doctors are charged insanely high malpractice premiums because this country has become a bunch of lazy whiners who are looking for the quickest way to make a buck. In the end no one wins because no one wants to be a doctor anymore and people can’t afford to go to them anyway. The system is broken.

I do believe in marriage, however I do not have a clear opinion on the idea of gay marriage. My godfather is gay, as is my wife’s cousin. While I don’t particularly agree with their orientation (genetic or not) I do feel that state governments should be the ones to settle this issue.

I am pro-life, although I support abortion in the cases of medical necessity or rape/molestation. I do not however support it on any other grounds. As stated before I believe people should be responsible for their own actions. I am not against the idea of sex education in schools; I do feel that abstinence should be taught as the primary solution. I am also not against stem-cell research as long as babies are not being aborted to get that research.

I am against Affirmative Action. I think it does more harm than anything else. A job should go to whoever is most qualified for the job regardless of race or sex.

I am Pro-Death Penalty and for stricter penalties for crimes in general. While I value human life, I feel that those that do not, do not deserve to live. People should be afraid to commit crimes and should understand the consequences at stake.

I am in favor of gun-ownership. I myself do not own a gun, outside of my Stormtrooper blaster rifle, and I don’t plan on purchasing a gun at any point in the future. I do however feel that upstanding citizens should be allowed to own firearms. I find the argument that gun control curbs crime to be a crock of crap. Criminals are not buying their guns from the local Ammunation; they are buying them out of the backs of cars illegally. Punishing people who are purchasing their guns legally isn’t hurting anybody except those that are entitled to actually own them.

I am for school choice because the public school system is broken at a core level, mostly because of No Chile Left Behind. The program doesn’t work. It hampers teachers and administrators and does not actually help any child. It’s a nice idea that every child is equal, but they are not so making them all take a standardized test to determine their competency is inane. What about SPED’s or ESL’s? How about instead of No Child Left Behind we start by funding the school’s better and setting a relevant set of standards that can be attained.

In conjunction with my other education views I am not against the teaching of evolution but I do feel it should be taught alongside the theories of creationism and intelligent design. While I don’t necessarily agree with those stances there are many that do and they should be taught, with the ultimate responsibility falling on the parent to determine what they want their child to believe in.

I am against illegal immigration but not immigration in general. My great-grand parents came over on a boat from Poland and they claimed it was the greatest experience of their lives. Who am I to tell people to go back to their own country? The United States is a melting pot and it is one of the things that make the nation so great but if you come here illegally I support your deportation.

I am for a strong national military but I am against interventionist foreign policy actions, something that the Republican Party used to also be against but has gotten away from in the past decade.

I am completely against the democratization of the Middle East or any country that doesn’t want to be a democratic state. Just because it works for us does not mean it will work for them.

It all comes down to one thing though and that is the political system as it is now, with their two dominant parties, is broken and it won’t be fixed in this election (or the next, or the one after that) so it comes down to where you side. In this case I side more with McCain than I do with Obama. So there you have it.