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    <title>swaits.com: How I'm Voting This Fall</title>
    <link>http://swaits.com/articles/2006/10/06/how-im-voting-this-fall</link>
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    <description>A Blog by Stephen Waits</description>
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      <title>"How I'm Voting This Fall" by Stephen Waits</title>
      <description>yw hk! --Steve</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 07 Oct 2006 15:31:50 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>urn:uuid:43757ad6-011e-47b5-99e3-f747c817f2a1</guid>
      <link>http://swaits.com/articles/2006/10/06/how-im-voting-this-fall#comment-316</link>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>"How I'm Voting This Fall" by hkchao</title>
      <description>Thanks for sharing.</description>
      <pubDate>Sat, 07 Oct 2006 11:46:47 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid>urn:uuid:64b34157-a005-4b2b-978e-082bbe397fa9</guid>
      <link>http://swaits.com/articles/2006/10/06/how-im-voting-this-fall#comment-315</link>
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    <item>
      <title>How I'm Voting This Fall</title>
      <description>&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#8217;s my secret ballot.  Oops, it&amp;#8217;s not a secret.  Truth is, I have nothing to hide and I just feel like yapping.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#8217;m a registered Democrat.  But I&amp;#8217;ve not voted Dems in a very long time.  I&amp;#8217;ve wanted to switch the registration to Independent a few times, but then I usually decide against it since it let&amp;#8217;s me vote in (or taint) some primaries.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Anyway, we&amp;#8217;re coming up on the mid-terms.  These are my plans.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;Calfornia Referendae&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;California has quite a few propositions on the ballot, and here&amp;#8217;s how I&amp;#8217;m voting on them:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Bond measures. Definite *NO* on anything that&amp;#8217;s a bond measure.  I quickly counted over $40 BILLION in bond measures!  OMFG..  $40 BILLION.  That&amp;#8217;s debt that we cannot afford.  Oh, I don&amp;#8217;t fall for the education needs more money crap - it&amp;#8217;s not the answer.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;State funded campaigns: Probably &lt;em&gt;YES&lt;/em&gt;, but I need to do a bit more research.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tobacco tax.  Definite &lt;em&gt;YES&lt;/em&gt;.  I&amp;#8217;m sick of all the ads on my TV spewing crap - and when I read the very end of the very fine print it says &amp;#8220;R.J. Reynolds&amp;#8221;, or &amp;#8220;Smokless Tobacco Company&amp;#8221;.  You liars, I hope you have to pay.  Plus I don&amp;#8217;t smoke.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Oil tax.  Definite &lt;em&gt;YES&lt;/em&gt;.  Same as tobacco, except the company is &amp;#8220;Chevron&amp;#8221;.  Plus, I don&amp;#8217;t think this will change gasoline prices, which are market driven.  Even if it does, I don&amp;#8217;t care.  I like high gasoline prices.  Less giant SUVs on the road means better bicycling and motorcycling for me, and less traffic jams for everyone.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;There are a few other things about amending the State Constitution blah blah blah.  I&amp;#8217;ll either abstain, or read more about it as we get closer.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;Elected Offices&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now, as for how I&amp;#8217;m voting on actual humans&amp;#8230;  &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In years past I really identified strongly with the &lt;a href="http://www.natural-law.org/"&gt;Natural Law Party&lt;/a&gt;.  Unfortunately, they&amp;#8217;ve whithered away into a project called the &lt;a href="http://www.uspeacegovernment.org/"&gt;U.S. Peace Government&lt;/a&gt;.  Now, the party I most identify with is the &lt;a href="http://www.lp.org/"&gt;Libertarian Party&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These days are bad days in the world of U.S. Government.  I believe they&amp;#8217;re all crooks and liars, they&amp;#8217;re all bad, they all need to go away.  Something needs to be done.  So, here&amp;#8217;s my voting strategy, which was inspired by a friend of a friend.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;I will not vote for any incumbent in any office.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the incumbent is a Republican, I&amp;#8217;ll vote Democrat.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;If the incumbent is a Democrat, I&amp;#8217;ll vote Libertarian.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Next up, Green, then maybe I&amp;#8217;ll just play roulette.  Maybe I&amp;#8217;ll try to guess which one doesn&amp;#8217;t believe in the whole jesus fable and pick them?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;p&gt;I usually do &lt;em&gt;not&lt;/em&gt; vote by party.  Instead, I&amp;#8217;ve historically selected candidates on an individual basis; however, I think this is the right way to go this time around.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#8217;s it.  That&amp;#8217;s my conscience, that&amp;#8217;s my vote.  I hope that with these elections we can start down the path of fixing the giant mess.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;And, finally, I hope you&amp;#8217;ll all go out and vote your collective conscience this Fall.&lt;/p&gt;</description>
      <pubDate>Fri, 06 Oct 2006 15:59:00 -0500</pubDate>
      <guid isPermaLink="false">urn:uuid:84bb5624-5959-4eab-8836-79ce1514752a</guid>
      <author>steve@waits.net (Stephen Waits)</author>
      <link>http://swaits.com/articles/2006/10/06/how-im-voting-this-fall</link>
      <category>politics</category>
      <trackback:ping>http://swaits.com/articles/trackback/314</trackback:ping>
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