My daily commute to work could be very insane. I despise traffic and it is one of the few things I lose patience over. Living here on the rim of insanity provides me ample opportunity to practice patience, if I took the usual routes from my home to where I work.
So what did I do about it? I simply went to MapQuest, got the directions from my home to my place of work, and eliminated all the roads that I know would be crowded with traffic. My usual route takes at least the same time as it would if I took the common one and it keeps me sane at the same time.
Why did do that? Why did I not just assume that the common route would be the best one? It’s simple really: I don’t settle or compromise on things that are important to me. I consider it very important to find the route to work with the least difficulty because I hate traffic. I am not about to wait around for the government to build more roads, increase lanes, or build reliable public transportation in order to get me to my work location faster. As it stands, it takes them years just to finish the approval to start building a new road in most cases.
Voting is a much more important than my daily commute. More specifically voting for the right guy to represent me in any government office is a very important endeavor and I am usually very careful to find the person with the best fit. I know most of you yahoos would rather watch football or log on to Facebook than investigate a political candidate, but I don’t like to swallow what some asshole on the mainstream media says about a politician. As such, I do not compromise my vote.
However, I find that most of even the most dedicated voter will still compromise on their values because they do not support the other guy, be they Democrat or Republican. Conservatives are notorious for this because they will always pick the most conservative guy in the primary and when they lose, they will still vote for the Republican because they think he or she will be better than the Democrat.
Unfortunately, when you make any kind of compromise, it is the more irrational party that will win. In other words, by compromising your values and not writing someone else in or voting for another candidate, you are perpetuating the growth of government by supporting the big government guy.
I talk about how both Newt Gringrich and Mitt Romney are not conservative a few days ago. I know that the current selections are not anywhere near what would be ideal for a conservative to choose. But why are they already compromising their principles? Because they think things are worse under President Obama.
How foolish is that? President Obama has done a lot of things I disagree with, but for the most part, I suspect most Americans lives have not been directly affected by President Obama. I know mine has not. This does not mean that the government does affect the market but can you really say that you lost your job because of President Obama (or President Bush for that matter)? More often than not, the collection of individuals engage in economic activity are what determine what companies succeed and what companies fail. You can have a really great product but if nobody wants, because they don’t see the utility of it, then your company goes broke and you lay off the employees.
I know, I’ve simplified things when it comes to studying the use of scarce resources that have alternative uses. But honestly, most great companies can overcome the restrictions and restraints that come from unnecessary government regulations and ultimately succeed. Sure it takes a lot more effort, but short of an outright government ban of your product (like domestic oil from the Gulf of Mexico), success comes in spite of regulations.
Sure, there should not be anymore government regulations and I firmly believe that there should be none at all. Yet we are stuck with them because people are willing to compromise with their political ideology because they hate the other guy all because that guy happens to be in the wrong party.
The truth is, there is no real difference between the policies implemented by Democrats than there is with Republicans. Both parties have grown the government into the beast we face today and both have benefited from the loyal support of people who compromise with their own beliefs.
The fact is, unless conservatives in mass pick Ron Paul as their nominee, they are doomed to face a choice between two Statists, not fiscally responsible administrators. It would make no difference if Barack Obama or Newt Romney won next year precisely because they all are the same jackass. Yes I know that they all say different things and espouse different ideas, but ultimately they will all have the same policies put in place. After all, despite what President Obama said in his 2008 campaign, he has only created more wars and implemented many of the same things that President Bush would have.
And the only reason I say that Ron Paul is different from all the rest of the yahoos who would presume to rule over us is because his long record speaks as to one of consistency and actions matching words. It would be a shame to ignore a politician who means what says and does just that.