Castles

One of the kids' favorite toys lately has been a Melissa and Doug wooden medieval castle that Paul's parents gave Nadia years ago. They also have been getting a lot of use out of the Melissa and Doug wood block sets that I got them years ago. They have turned the blocks into a village around the castle. Nadia and Ian play with it fairly peacefully unless Oliver becomes involved. They always feel like he is wrecking what they have built, but all three kids have been spending a lot of time playing with it, which has mean it has been difficult to walk around the family room floor lately. It is quite obvious that kids live here! I make them put away all the blocks and the castle at least once a week so I can vacuum, but otherwise I have been letting them keep it out, whereas usually I want all toys put away every day. The other Castle I have been thinking about the last few days is a man running for President. If my political views offend you, please just stop reading this post. I have tried to keep my mouth shut, but I feel like I need to write one post. I wouldn't dare share my views on Facebook. I'm not trying to start an argument. I try not to write about politics on my blog, but I guess once every four years I feel the need to get it out of my system.

Growing up I was aware of the tension between either voting your conscience even if you know your candidate has no chance of winning OR voting for the candidate you deem to be the "lesser of two evils". One of my parents espoused one belief, and one espoused the other. I had leaned toward the lesser of two evil side of things, but then 19 years ago I met Paul who was a die hard "vote your conscience" guy, and he swung me that direction. I actually didn't vote for George W. Bush because I opposed the war in Iraq and in some other ways didn't view him as being conservative enough (too big of a government - I wanted someone more like Ronald Reagan). I voted for the Constitution Party candidate instead. Ironically both Paul and I went the "lesser of two evils" theory and voted for Romney and McCain the last two elections. I say ironically because actually if I had to pick between McCain and Bush I would absolutely have picked Bush. It turns my stomach to think I voted for McCain, but I knew that Obama was far more radical than Bill Clinton. If the Republicans had picked just about anyone else beside Trump this year, I would have done the same thing three times in a row and voted "lesser of two evils" if I didn't actually like the candidate. I would have loved to see Rubio or Cruz win the nomination, for example. Then I would have actually had a candidate to vote for that I really could support. I wonder if that will ever happen in my lifetime? I wasn't old enough to vote for Reagan, ha ha!

So even though I think Hillary is just as radical as Obama plus has as many moral flaws as Trump, I am not voting Republican. I have had friends tell me "well Pence is conservative so just pick the VP you like the best". I would vote for the Republican ticket if Pence was the Presidential candidate, but he's not. Having a conservative VP is not enough to sway me. And to be honest, I have said for the past year that I was confident in the end that Hillary would become the President so really even if I voted for Trump I don't think I'll be voting for the winning candidate. So I am going to vote my conscience this time around and vote for Darrell Castle - Constitution Party. If the Libertarian were more conservative, I would vote for him. There are some Libertarians I could support, but not Johnson. It's hard to get excited about voting for a candidate that probably 99% of the population has never even heard of (Castle), but that's how Paul and I are voting.

I think there are several factors that led to Trump winning the nomination - a man who is not conservative, has given money toward Hillary's campaigns in the past, and has many, many character flaws and serious moral issues to put it mildly. One is that most of the Republicans in Congress have been so incredibly wishy washy. They say one thing to get elected and then get to DC and do the very opposite. So I think many wanted an "outsider" because of their dissatisfaction with politicians. As an aside, people like Rand Paul, Mike Lee, and Ted Cruz certainly should be considered outsiders even though they are Republicans. They have been by no means been a part of the Republican mainstream.

A second factor is that the Republicans allow "open elections" in the primary process. I think they should all be closed elections. In the beginning Cruz was winning the primaries that were closed and Trump was winning the ones where it was open. I can easily picture Democrats voting for Trump because they knew he would be the easiest candidate for Clinton to beat. A third factor (probably the biggest one) is the media. During the primaries they had kid gloves on when it came to Trump.

These recent videos that were leaked, did they just recently stumble across them from 10+ years ago? Absolutely not. They could have released them a year ago when he announced his candidacy or in the spring during the primary process. They purposefully saved them so they could help Hillary get elected. Paul and I both predicted this would happen many months ago. We figured they had really damaging audio or video recordings of Trump. Knowing the kind of man he is, it was easy to guess he had said really awful things about women. We both figured those would not be released until after he had been nominated, and we were right. I won't be surprised if more are released in the next few weeks. The producer of Apprentice (Bill Pruitt) insinuated the same last week on Twitter when he said. "As a producer on seasons 1 & 2 of #theapprentice I assure you: when it comes to the #trumptapes there are far worse. #justthebegininng."

Also, it is apparent there is a double standard with the media. Hillary has done things a million times worse than what Nixon did, but she will be elected instead of impeached. Similarly, she has defended her husband many times when confronted about his rape victims. How is what Trump has said any worse than her defending her husband over these victims??? Bill Clinton is a womanizer just like Trump, but she has stood by his side for political reasons, and of course Bill has more control of his tongue than Trump does. The media is exceedingly biased and has the power it seems to significantly influence (possibly control?) the outcome of elections. I only wish a LOT more people were willing to vote for a third party. Over the course of our history political parties have emerged and some have gone by the wayside. I wish some other party would rise up and replace the Republicans, if they are going to nominate people like Donald Trump for President. In the end, I have to remind myself of three things - #1 my job (aside from voting) is to pray for whomever is in power, #2 God is sovereign and in control no matter who is President, and #3 as our society continues to turn farther and farther away from the Lord and the teachings found in His Word, it is only to be expected to end up with choices like Clinton and Trump for President. Sad but true. I need to pray for a revival in our country. Okay I will try to wait four years before discussing politics on my blog again. :) I just want America to be a great country for my children and grandchildren. In my wildest dreams that would mean a country where we follow the constitution, where babies are not allowed to be killed, and where men and women use separate public bathrooms, but that's probably asking way too much....