It is up to us
Protecting our children, our
future, and our freedom
by Curtiss Wikstrom
America has been exceptional
because most of our associations and activities have been
voluntary. We could make most of the important decisions in our lives
ourselves, rather than having them made for us by a government agent or
committee. We have been free to choose our friends and associates.
We have had the right to own, use, buy and sell property, rather than live as
serfs or tenants of royalty or government agencies, required to get permission
to do anything.
Because of that freedom we could all create, innovate,
invent, and start businesses, services, or charities. We could start our
own groups with people willing to work for the same goals or causes. We
were free to trade with each other, compete, and cooperate. Because there
are so many people creating and innovating, we have become unbelievably
prosperous in comparison to the rest of the world. Each of us benefits
from the creative work of so many free people, no matter how humble our own
contribution.
When we deal with free enterprises we can patronize
those that treat us the best. If we are not satisfied doing business with
one group, we can walk across the street, or drive down the road and patronize
another group. If we feel that one doctor is not finding an adequate
remedy we can go get treatment from another. Free private businesses work
hard to keep us coming back for business. They know that if we are happy
with the products and services we will come back for more.
We used to respect and protect freedom of
conscience. We were not forced to do things that we thought were morally
wrong. Even during times of war, those who could not kill others
were excused from combat. We could disagree strongly on issues and still
tolerate and live with each other. We could call other people wrong or mistaken
without giving offense, and it didn't occur to us to call opposing views
"hate speech".
The rights of parents to make decisions was
respected. Parents and children could choose where the children were
educated, whether in public or private schools, or home schooled. Public
schools were run at the local level so that parents had considerable influence
over who ran the school and what its policies were. This freedom does not exist
in much of the world, including Europe.
Government is an agent of force. Force must be
used to protect us from tyrants, violence, or fraud, to regulate traffic and
settle disputes. But government must be restrained and limited to
its proper purposes.
Our Federal Constitution assumes that our rights are
from God, not the government, and it limits the power of our federal
government. Government is subject to a higher authority and a higher
moral code. We have a right to overthrow the government if it tries to
take our rights away from us. That is why America has been an exceptional
nation. Other governments of the world, including the United Nations,
look upon themselves, or wish they were, the highest authority. They are
the social engineers, and we are their subjects.
Our federal and state constitutions were designed to
keep most governance local or near to us, so that we have an actual voice in
what force is being used, so that those who are in positions of power are more
directly accountable to us. When government is close to us we have some
influence over the policies and we can see how our tax money is being used and
can keep it under control. And replacing representatives and leaders can
actually change the policies. America was unique and exceptional because
the power of government was limited and people could be self-reliant and
responsible for their own lives.
But we are rapidly losing the freedom to make
decisions for ourselves, to disagree, and to live our lives in accordance with
our moral values.
There are always those who want central planning and
extensive controls over people, and power for themselves. And they are abetted
by those who seek government favors for themselves, to impose themselves on
others or put limits on the freedom of others. They have gained control
over our federal government. It is increasingly treating us like
subjects, trying to control every aspect of our lives. In the
process they are destroying our prosperity and hanging an albatross of debt
over us, our children, and our grandchildren. We need to do something now
before it is too late. We must change the regime in Washington, DC.
and in many of the states.
Rising above our parochial concerns
We must vote for candidates who will protect our
freedoms rather than those who will give us the most "free" stuff
from the government, or provide us with special benefits or power to force
ourselves on others. The federal government gets more and more control
over our lives by creating dependency, and giving special benefits and
privileges to various groups. Freedom requires a higher degree of self-reliance
and individual responsibility. That is why those who want power work to
destroy self-reliance and force people into government programs.
Vote for the candidates who support balanced budgets,
adherence to the checks and balances of our constitution, and adherence to the
traditional moral code that underpins all of our freedoms. If we vote
selfishly, as many candidates are counting on, we will end up poorer, because
we will destroy our prosperity and make ourselves slaves to debt.
To change the corrupt regime in Washington DC, we need
to vote differently. That takes humility and courage. Many Democrats will need
to bolt from their traditional voting habits for us to have any chance to save
the unique freedoms that only we have in this country. Democrats
who still believe in preserving our sovereignty, protecting our basic moral
values, and preserving freedom of thought, association, religion, and freedom
of enterprise need to change the leadership in that party or leave it.
The drive to relinquish our sovereignty has been
very deceptive.
To take away our local control over property rights,
the internationalists have created Agenda 21. Agenda 21 basically turns
local government into an agent of the United Nations, forcing us to follow
extensive rules controlling every aspect of the use of our property. They
manipulate us with global warming and population control enticements that
divert attention away from the power grab.
To take away control over how we raise our children
and operate our families, the internationalists have created the UN convention
on the rights of the child, the rights of the disabled, the rights of women,
and so forth. By granting rights, rather than protecting rights, the
conventions put obligations and mandates on parents, local and state
governments. The power grab is to give the UN court jurisdiction over
families. The UN could abolish the right to private schooling or home schooling
(a freedom that other countries don't have), and punish those who don't comply
through the World Court. It could force schools to teach how to engage in
Sodomy despite objections from parents or the local community. There are
cases in Europe, especially Great Britain, illustrating the oppressive power
this gives UN officials who don't share our values. Very few countries in
the world have as much freedom as we have, including the right to bear
arms. Most other countries would not vote to keep that freedom.
To control our operations in the open seas there is
the UN convention on the law of the SEA. This essentially transfers
sovereignty over the oceans to the UN, giving the UN extensive power, and
furthering world government. They want to directly tax individuals, once
again giving them jurisdiction over individuals.
Obama, and the Clintons, have signed the
conventions. Most Democratic officeholders support
relinquishing sovereignty to the UN, and a handful of Republicans
do. But Republican opposition in the Senate has been enough to stop these
treaties so far. Our Constitution requires the Senate to ratify treaties.
Romney has stated that he opposes ceding sovereignty to the UN over matters
that should be under parental, local, or state jurisdiction. It is
very important that we vote for a President, and for senators, who will protect
our sovereignty, and who understand what makes us free. It is very
important to replace the President and Senators of either party who support these
treaties. Michael Baumgartner would protect our sovereignty and
should get our vote. Maria Cantwell does not.
Protecting our traditional Moral Code
Most of the problems that we face in this country are
a result of the abandonment of the moral code that underpins all of our
freedoms. Without that moral code, we cannot be free.
The most serious consequence of the abandonment of the
moral code is the breakdown in the family structure. The federal and
state governments have aided and abetted this moral breakdown by creating
dependency and by facilitating sexual promiscuity and deviancy.
If young men and women were taught how to love God and
their fellow man, waited until they found the right partner, and got married
before having children, the vast majority of our social problems would be
resolved at a fraction of the cost to society. Abortion clinics,
counseling and remedial clinics could be closed. Whole agencies of
government could be disbanded and the people working there could get into
productive work.
Protecting our children from Exploitation:
Penetration of the rectum, or Sodomy, is dangerous and unhealthy; physically,
mentally, and emotionally. It is filled with harmful substances which the
body wants to excrete. No decent parent would knowingly expose their children
to these unhealthy practices, nor allow those promoting the practices to
exploit their children when they are most vulnerable. We have a right to
place our children under teachers who will not exploit them, nor indoctrinate them
to accept unhealthy activity. When your six year old son comes home and
says "mom, I think I am a lesbian", you know that the teachers
are already indoctrinating him to accept the teacher's union's word view.
We have a right to guide our children into good associations, where they will
not be intimidated and exploited. If we let them hang around with drug
addicts, they will eventually experiment with drugs. If they hang around
with those with foul language, soon they will start talking that way themselves.
If we let them hang around with sexual deviants, they will be coaxed,
intimidated, and challenged to experiment with deviant sex. Don't believe the
lies. There is no Sodomy gene. Deviant activity will multiply exponentially if
our children are indoctrinated to accept it and to experiment with it.
Those who want to exploit your children will call you a bigot,
hateful, homophobe. They will yell "I am being discriminated
against". Don't let them fool or intimidate you. They
are just substituting the word "discriminate" for the word
"choice". You have every right to choose who you and your
children associate with. You have every right to make choices in your
life. Let them yell "discrimination" all they want. But
don't give in. It is the homosexuals who have the phobia, not you.
And they "discriminate" when they don't choose the opposite
sex. Democrats "discriminate" when they don't vote for
Republicans, and atheists "discriminate" when they chose not to go to
church. Don't play those games with them.
Protecting our Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Association
In addition to exposing our children to
sexual exploitation, the primary consequences of redefining marriage to equate
Sodomy with normal sex is to assault our freedom of conscience, and our freedom
of association.
Freedom of Conscience will be a victim
of marriage redefined. While a homosexual could simply find a
justice of the peace who will do what they want, they will instead force those
whose conscience are offended to perform ceremonies celebrating Sodomy or be
fired. While homosexuals could go to a state adoption agency to get
children, they will violate the conscience of Catholic charities to force them
to give them children, or shut them down. While homosexuals could ask
florists or others to service their celebrations who don't care about their
practices, they will violate the conscience of florists who don't want to
participate in celebrating Sodomy or sue them or shut them down. Hate
laws and Human rights commissions will persecute those who state their
opposition to Sodomy, and Catholic Bishops will be punished financially for
sending the rules on sexuality of the gospels to their parishioners. Laws
will be proposed to punish those who voluntarily help a homosexual end their
unhealthy behavior. This is not speculation. This is already
happening in other countries or states where marriage has been redefined.
However, it is not primarily homosexuals who are attacking freedom of
conscience and association. Only a small fraction of them make use of the
redefined marriage laws, and most have no hatred toward Christians. It is
the "Progressives" (statists/nihilists), including activist
homosexuals, who are attacking freedom of conscience and freedom of association
and want to either subvert the Christian/Jewish/Muslim/etc. faiths or drive
them underground. Obama and the Clinton's are admitted members of the
"Progressive" movement. And they are financed by a number of
extremely wealthy people who do not share our values.
Freedom of Religion consists of freedom of conscience,
freedom of association, and freedom of expression.
Genuine Christians, Jew, Muslims, and other people of
faith need to register and vote for
candidates who respect religious freedom, traditional marriage, and the moral
code that keeps us free. Even if you are not a religious person, you protect
your own, and your children's freedom of expression, association, and
conscience when you protect the rights of others.
Keeping our Children free from Indoctrination
The Obama administration wants to take control of the
curriculum of all schools in the United States, latching onto a national
curriculum called Common Core. Promoted by a group of private foundations
who want national standards forcing all students to be indoctrinated in the
same way, federal control over curriculum will put a final end to parental and
local control of education. All totalitarian states seek to indoctrinate
all children, since it gives them control over the minds of the people.
We can only stop this drive to further take control away from parents by voting
to replace Obama and the Democratic Senate, and to insist that those who are
elected quit trying to micromanage our schools. We had much better
results many years ago when local schools were locally controlled and
financed. The state and federal interference and control has resulted in
lower standards and a path to totalitarianism that we need to avoid.
The President has failed to promote economic recovery
because he has been doing exactly the wrong things. Economic
activity results when businessmen and investors reinvest their profits, not
when government takes those profits away and spends them on pork barrel
projects. Profits must be re-invested to keep up in a particular
industry, to expand, and to innovate. People's needs and the means to
satisfy those needs are always changing, requiring those who know what they are
doing to devote resources to those new challenges. Successful people know
how to put resources to good use, which in turn provides jobs to others.
Yet the campaigns of Obama and most Democratic incumbents are focused on
attacking those very people.
Obama tries to deceive us by saying "we don't
want to go back to the failed policies of the past". Obama
is continuing the failed policies that got us into the problems that we have,
and he is making them worse. Obama still clings to the
discredited "Keynesian" notion that government spending
"stimulates" the economy and improves it. Creating and spending
more money does not create wealth, it just re-distributes and misallocates
it. Wealth is created by people providing useful products and services to
others. Money is just a medium of exchange. When it is manipulated,
the economy suffers.
Economists from the Austrian School, especially Ludwig von Mises,
explained why government manipulation of credit and the money supply, excessive
spending, and interference were the causes of recessions and depressions. See Human Action , by Ludwig von Mises
While we need productive
jobs to create wealth, it is the wealth that we really want, not necessarily
the jobs. Time wasting jobs don't create wealth. In the 1930's some
of the "Keynesian" economists went so far as to suggest that digging
a hole and filling it up "stimulated" the economy. The state of
Oregon requires gas station attendants to fill your car, even though in most of
the United States you can drive in and fill your.own car. Having an
attendant there and paying them is a complete waste of that person's
time. They are doing something that doesn't need to be done, rather than
something that is productive. They could be doing something that advanced
their own well-being without increasing the cost of everyone else's gas.
They could be growing a garden, starting a small business that gave low cost
services to other people, or studying to improve their skills in an area that
has a shortage of people. More government bureaucratic "jobs"
do not add to the general wealth. They consume part of our wealth.
Wealth is created by entrepreneurs who come up with ideas for goods and
services, invest money that has been saved from prior profits, and organize
resources and workers to provide those goods and services that people actually
want. Wealth is not created by keeping people in outmoded jobs. It
is created when we save time and energy, and spend our time on other things
that we want. It is a good thing to free up our time and energy.
Too many controls and red tape making it hard for people to move from job to
job causes us to lose the benefits of innovations that save time and
energy. And all of the busybody laws forcing us to get permission to do
anything, including improve our own house or property, make it difficult to do
things for ourselves. While Obama is at fault for expanding rules and
regulations by thousands of pages, we and our neighbors are at fault for
numerous local busybody regulations, thinking "nobody should be allowed
to.....". There needs to be rules. But they need to be simple
and practical, allowing people to make mistakes and learn, and to take
responsibility for themselves.
Out of control federal spending is the root of our
financial problems.
Our federal government has been spending money at
unprecedented levels for the past several years. The debt has grown so
large that the federal government can't afford to pay reasonable interest
rates. So the Federal Reserve forced interest rates to zero (by means of
charging banks no interest on the loans from the Federal Reserve). The low
interest rates mean that we can't earn anything on what used to be safe
investments, forcing us into riskier investments. This causes wrong signals in
the market resulting in misallocation of resources. It also created high
prices and speculation in real estate. That was further driven by
congressional policies that force banks to lend to almost anyone and then
guaranteed those risky loans. To claim that the real estate and subsequent
financial meltdown was due to "de-regulation" is either rank
dishonesty or total incompetence. Along with extensive credit and money
creation, government interference in the lending market has never been more
extreme than during this period. The Federal National Mortgage
Association and the Federal Home Loan Mortgage, government sponsored
enterprises, expand the secondary mortgage market by securitizing mortgages in
the form of mortgage-backed securities. They provided 75% of the new financing
that caused the housing bubble. People from these institutions
contributed heavily to Obama's campaign and now hold important positions in his
administration. This is crony capitalism at its worst. Obama works hand
in glove with the same people who created the crises, and are now in charge of
managing the fallout, getting bailed out by the government all along the way,
making millions in the process.
Destroying the Discipline of the free market
When through competition certain businesses get out of
step with the demands of customers, or if new innovations provide customer with
better products or services, or government policy changes disrupt an industry,
those businesses that can't compete or otherwise survive will need to liquidate
their assets and close. Those assets and the people can be redeployed
into new endeavors. When government interferes in this market by bailing out
the business that have made serious mistakes in managing their resources, or
that are no longer making products that can compete in the market, it destroys
the discipline of the free market, and causes serious disruptions in economic
activity.
Giving subsidies to certain businesses also destroys
the discipline of the free market. It diverts resources from more
productive to less productive businesses.
Profits are essential to Discipline
A private business must satisfy its customers or they
won't buy from it. But it also must make a profit, pay its employees, and
pay its bills, or it will go out of business. This forces the businesses
to plan and operate efficiently and effectively. Competition between
businesses makes them even more efficient, because as soon as one business
gives better products and better prices, the others need to innovate to keep up
with the competition. Profits need to be reinvested in new technologies
and modernized equipment to keep operating and expanding. When profits
are taxed too much, a business must cut back on its plans, which means
employing fewer people. Taxes on American businesses are among the
highest in the world. Increasing them will not make investing in America
and creating jobs here more attractive. The Obama administration's
claim that increasing taxes on businesses will solve all of our economic
problems is completely wrong. It will do the opposite. They
probably know that. More than likely, attacking the so called "rich"
is primarily aimed to get the jealousy vote, not an honest economic argument.
Need for Leadership
By refusing to take action to control spending,
President Obama and the Democratic Senate have brought us to a fiscal
cliff. Since our government can no longer sell bonds to keep up with its
spending, most of the new spending is fed with newly created money by the
Federal Reserve. This is technically accomplished when the Federal Reserve
buys the debt, putting a credit balance on the books. This is bringing us
to an economic cliff. Once all of this extra money finds its way into the
economy, prices and values will change so significantly as to seriously disrupt
ordinary business and economic activity. Prices are already rising, not
only gasoline prices.
Obama has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that
he is incompetent to handle such an enormous economic disruption. [Or he
actually wants the disaster to happen.] We need someone who can weather
us through a very bad storm. The solution to overspending and too much debt is
not more spending and adding to the debt. It is getting the government
under control and stop disrupting the economy with one program after
another. We need a President who doesn't spend most of his time golfing,
traveling, or politicking. We need a President who will role up his shirt
sleeves and create compromises with Congress that will work to bring spending
under control and balance the budget without increasing taxes. Obama has
not done that. Instead he has ignored Congress and put himself above the
law.
The country is going to suffer during the recovery
from this federal spending binge. If we have someone in leadership who
believes in America, recovery will bring us back to a free country. If
Obama is in charge, with a Democratic Congress, we will head into full scale
socialism. America as an ideal of liberty will be over. The way to
get a country to relinquish its freedom and accept socialism is for the
government to spend so much money that they bring the whole economy down,
then blame it all on freedom.
Obama-care, or the so called "Affordable Care act" is an
assault on all of our basic freedoms.
It runs roughshod over our freedom of conscience when
it forces us to purchase insurance for things that we don't want to participate
in.
Panels of bureaucrats have been put in place to
develop "standards" as to how we will be treated, what treatments
will be paid for, what prices the doctors may charge, which doctors qualify for
insurance payments, and so forth. This violates our basic freedoms to
decide for ourselves which procedures we will take and which doctors we want to
do the work.
Obama is lying when he says we will be able to choose
our own doctors, just as he lied when he said this type of legislation would be
transparent, with open public discussion. In fact there was no
discussion. The Democrats in the house and Senate voted for the bill
without even having the opportunity to read it. We will have to deal with
the doctors that the agencies decide provide the procedures that they will
allow and are approved by the plans. Those who are codependent with government
bureaucrats will accept this way of doing things because they are willing to
let others make these types of decisions for them. Socialism creates,
nurtures, and rewards dependency. Those of us who want alternatives, to
make our own choices, and to deal with doctors on a free basis will lose our
freedom to do that.
Obama care destroys the discipline of the market for
health care.
Mandating insurance coverage for many ordinary and
expected things forces people to pay for more coverage than they would
ordinarily purchase if given a free choice as to how to allocate their
resources. Since so many things are covered, people will tend to use
services that they normally would not chose to pay for. To some extent this is
just what the government wants. They want everyone to have an annual
checkup. So they will force us to pay into insurance for the checkup,
then offer it to us "free". They want all women to use
contraceptives to prevent pregnancies and to get abortions if they become
pregnant anyway. So they force everyone to pay insurance to cover
contraceptives and abortions, and then offer them "free" to
women. However, running ordinary expenses through insurance increases the
costs of those services and products. It adds two middlemen who have to
get paid, the insurance company and the government bureaucrat. The whole
purpose for insurance is to cover unexpected costs. Government mandates
to cover ordinary expenses is a driving force behind the exponential growth in
health insurance premiums. And it has reduced the competition between
those who would supply us directly.
Obama promised that health insurance premiums would go
down by $2,500. They have gone up by that, and that is even before the
most onerous provisions of Obama care go into effect. He deliberately put
off the most onerous provisions until after the 2012 elections, fearing that
people would be so unhappy that he would lose the election. Then after
the election, he could veto attempts to reform it. Many new hidden taxes will
come out after the election. If Obama care is so bad that we have to have the
election before we are shown the true nature of it, we need to vote for
people who will end it before we are consumed by it.
Free markets are essential to personal freedom.
We have the most influence when we spend our own money and buy what we
want. That is when our "vote" actually has the most influence
over what we are able to get or achieve. If we aren't
treated well in one store, we can walk out and do business with someone
else. This freedom creates discipline within our free markets. Each
one of us influences what we can buy and what is made for us. A single
vote in a world government that owns or manipulates the organs of information
can not gain us any freedom. However, each dollar that we spend in a free
market helps us be freer. Free markets in health care and health
insurance are important. Obama claims that he is eliminating the
"middle man". The truth is that he is creating a new
middleman. A government bureaucrat will now be the middleman for
everything that is done, whether by providers, insurance company, or by
patients. Red tape will multiply. Doctors who don't like being
pushed around will leave the profession, and others will simply never get into
the profession.
We need a Senate that will do its job
The US Senate has not passed a budget for almost 6
years. And spending is out of control. This behavior is
irresponsible. We need to demand that our Senators balance the federal
budget every year, or replace them.
Freedom of Religion is important to everyone, not only Christians
If you are not a Christian, you need to be just as
concerned over the loss of freedom of conscience as a Christian would.
Your children also deserve to hear about the dangerous of Sodomy, not only the
propaganda trying to entice them. Non-Christians also have personal
standards of ethics. You may want to choose who you want to do
business with, and who to associate with for any number of reasons, and may
resent people forcing themselves on you or your family. As a matter of ethics
you may not want to sell certain products, or be required to perform abortions
as a doctor or nurse. It won't end with abortion. Once freedom of
conscience is dead, you can be forced to do anything the government wants you
to do. That is an extremely dangerous power to give to the government.
Along with the power to arrest people without a warrant, as congress passed and
Obama signed, and the power to body scan and grope you whenever the government
feels the urge, our federal government will have the same power as any
totalitarian regime. Once this election is over, and if we have saved our
country from tyranny, we need to work on those who we elect to Congress to restore
all of our civil liberties.
You need to be concerned about freedom of expression
as well. The Obama administration is systematically and methodically
assaulting the freedom of Christians, as is well documented in No
Higher Power by Phyllis Schlafley. From a failed attempt to prevent
reading the Bible to wounded soldiers, to forcing religious groups to drop
their message from their charitable works, to deliberately dropping "by
our Creator" and God from historic documents, to forcing Religious
organizations to hire people who don't share their faith, to many many other
assaults on free expression and belief, the Obama administration has been the
most anti-Christian administration in the history of our country. More
than any time in history, the Democratic party needs to be told in no uncertain
terms. Stop destroying our freedom, and keep your deviant hands off of
our children! The only way to do that is for freedom loving Democrats,
Republicans, Independents, Christians,
Jews, Muslims, and other people of faith to vote them out of power. We
can't do that if we split our vote with minor party candidates. Groups
within the Republican party have been cleaning up their party, replacing many of
those who are luke warm about preserving our constitution and our liberties. For
better or for worse we must accumulate our votes in the Republican party, and
continue to support people in that party who will balance the budget, maintain
our sovereignty and restore our basic freedoms.
Who is closest to our values
I have looked through the candidates for various
positions to determine which of them would be most likely to protect our
sovereignty, balance the budget, keep government as close to us as possible,
allow us to make our own decisions about the important things in our life, and
respect our freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, freedom of
association, and who would not permit our children to be exploited and
indoctrinated when they are most vulnerable. Please do not stay home and
watch our precious liberties be taken from us. Vote for those who will protect
our freedoms, or are the least dangerous to our freedoms.
Candidates that I think are most likely to protect our
sovereignty, balance the budget, and
respect our freedoms.
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President/VicePresident: Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan
Senator: Michael Baumgartner
US Congressional District 1: John Koster
US Congressional District 2: Dan Matthews
Governor: Rob McKenna
Lieutenant Governor: Brad Owen
Secretary of State: Kim Wyman
State Treasurer: Sharon Hanek
State Auditor: James Watkins
Attorney General: Reagan Dunn
Commissioner of Public Lands: Clint Didier
Superintendent of Public Instruction: Write in
Insurance Commissioner: John Adams
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Legislative District 40: John Swapp
State Representative Pos 1: Brandon Robinson
State Representative Pos 2: Write in someone
Supreme Court Position 2: Write in someone
Supreme Court Position 8: Write In
Supreme Court Position 9: Richard Sanders (One of the Best)
Court of Appeals Division 1 (Pos 1):
San Juan county Superior Court Judge:
San Juan County council(Depending on District: Orcas: Rick Huges or
Scott Lancaster San Juan: Bob Jarman or Marc Forlenza
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Initiative measure 1185 - 2/3 majority for new taxes:
Yes
Initiative measure 1240 charter schools: NO
There are better ways to have charter schools than
this.
Referendum 74 redefining marriage:
Rejected
Initiative Measure 502 Legalize and regulate Marijuana: No
(Penalties should be modest, however full legalization
will bring a host of
new social problems that we really don't need, including a conflict with
federal law)
Engrossed Senate Joint Resolution 8221 reduces debt authority: YES
Senate Joint Resolution 8223 making an exception to restriction on State
owning private companies: Rejected
Engrossed Senate Bill 6635 eliminating tax deduction for investment in
private homes: Repealed
Substitute House Bill 2590 extending the expiration date on tax on petroleum
possession: Repealed
San Juan County Initiative 2012-4 prohibits growing
genetically modified organisms: NO
We should not buy genetically modified foods, but let
people decide for themselves.
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San Juan County Prop 1 reduces the number of commissioners to
3, each elected county wide: YES
Should the Commissioners be a board of directors, directing the manager?
Or should they be a legislature with an independent executive?
As a board of directors, those who make the decisions are accountable to the
voters.
There are pros and cons to voting for 1 commissioner or having a
vote on every commissioner. It will work or not work either way, depending on
who we put into office.
San Juan County Prop 2 County manager would be subject to
directions of Commissioners and would not be an independent branch of
government: YES
San Juan County Proposition 3 requires open meetings of the council and
committees except where permitted by law: YES
Orcas Island School District No 137 Prop 1 Bond for $11,900,000 to add and replace
buildings with an increase in property taxes for 20 years: Yes
But the numbers are highly loaded, and the board should be admonished to pare
down.
Orcas Island School District No 137 Prop 2 Technology Two year tax levy for
.06 cents per thousand: Yes
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Minnesota Candidates that I think are most likely to protect
our sovereignty, balance the budget, and respect our freedoms.
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President/VicePresident: Mitt Romney/Paul Ryan
Senator: Kurt Bills
US Congressional District 7: Lee Byberg
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MN House 01A Dan
Fabian
Senate District 1: Steve Nordhagen
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Marriage Protection Amendment: YES
Voter ID Amendment: YES
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