My Personal Thoughts on Voting

I will go to my polling place this morning and I will be voting on questions 4-7 here in Maryland. I will cast my vote for Rob Sobhani, the independent candidate for Senate. And, on the recommendation of my brother, vote to keep our current judges. What I will not be doing though is casting a vote for president. I've thought a good deal about this and have simply come to the conclusion that there is not a candidate on the ballot worth my vote. This is not because I'm too big of a purist. Many of you who will read this know that I have supported Ron Paul in the last two elections. This was despite the fact that I had disagreements with his positions on legalizing all drugs, prostitution, and his vision of a complete dismantling of all safety nets. (I do think we need to move a LOT closer in that direction, and very soon, for the sake of our economy, but not all the way.) But one thing I could always say about Ron Paul is this: his platform did not include any grave sins. This is a low bar for a candidate to have to clear, but unfortunately, all four candidates on my ballot include immorality in their party platforms. Dismissing the Greens, Libertarians, and Democrats is quite easy because of their embrace of abortion rights. See the post below this one if you want to see why I'm adamant about abortion. Barack Obama is also quite easy to ignore because of his appalling failures in Benghazi, and "judge, jury, executioner" mentality in drone strikes...particularly, the one against an American citizen. Romney is a little different, but equally bad. I will accept at face value his claim that he is now pro-life even though that didn't seem to happen until he decided to run for president. What bothers me about Romney, aside from his serial flip-flopping, is that during the foreign policy debate, there was not a substantive difference with the president. He would continue the same interventionist policies that lead to the consulate attack in Benghazi. If anything, Romney would pursue Obama's policies more harshly. As one commentator noted, Romney's foreign policy was Obama's, just screaming a little louder. With Iran on the horizon as a potential threat, the last thing I want is another president leading us into a middle eastern war. I fear that with Romney. So today I vote by abstaining from voting. It's not a waste, as some will say. It's a conscious choice to declare my independence and to say "enough is enough."