On his latest podcast, Ben Howe devoted his first segment to discussing why he believes that now that the primaries are over, it is time for those who do not want President Obama reelected to ‘get in line’ and support Mitt Romney’s candidacy.  He said that this is necessary because unseating Obama is more important than anything else. While I don’t agree with him on all of his points, I must say that he was respectful and his arguments were well thought out.  But he did have a bit of the “Vote for Romney, or the bunny gets it” in his reasoning.

Like I said, I disagree with him.  Yes, if Obama is re-elected, what little restraint he has will be gone, especially if the Democrats continue to control the Senate and a Republican majority in the House is shaved or even destroyed.

But I’m not being asked to vote against Barack Obama, I’m being asked to vote for Mitt Romney, and he hasn’t earned my vote just because he was able to convince a majority of the registered Republicans who got off their asses and voted in the primaries that he was the least ugly elephant in the pen.

If Mr. Romney wants my vote, he’s going to have to address a lot of the concerns I have, including his stance on 2nd Amendment rights, what he will do to dismantle Obamacare, how he will lessen the intrusion of the government in our everyday lives, and how he will dismantle the overly aggressive security bureaucracy that Presidents Bush and Obama have built over the last decade.  I want to see his detailed plan on how and what he is going to cut in order to save money, what he is going to do to encourage business development in this country (The right answer is to cut taxes and get the heck out of the way), and how he is going to reduce American engagement in every nook and cranny of the third world while still defending the country and its interests.

Mitt Romney signed an assault weapons ban and a government health care plan that was the model for Obamacare, and I want to hear how he has changed since then.  I want more than sound bites.  I want a public and explicit mea culpa, and I want to know how and why he came to see the error in his ways.

Yes, I want a lot.  I’m being asked to give a lot.  I’m being asked to give the reins of power of the country that I love and that my children will be living in for decades to come to a man who hasn’t convinced me that he will be a wise steward of our republic.  If Mr. Romney wants my vote, he’s going to have to convince me that he is not only electable, but will be a good president, and he hasn’t done that yet.  I am not an automatic vote, I am not a party drone, and I am not to be told to get in line because the time for discussion is over.  I truly believe in the Eleventh Commandment, but I also believe that my vote is mine and mine alone, and I will not be taken for granted because the primary season is over and the general election is getting cranked up.

President Obama recently added his contributions to the biographies of his predecessors.   I’ve taken a look, and I think he missed a few:

• 1802 – President Jefferson requests authorization from Congress to deal with the Barbary Pirates of Libya and Morocco.  President Obama carries on his legacy by waging a war against the Quaddafi regime in Libya without getting authorization from Congress.
• 1863 – President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing slaves in territory that has been taken from the Confederacy.  This is a prelude to the eventual emancipation of all slaves in the United States.  President Obama honors this act by continuing and extending policies that keep black Americans on the plantation of poverty.
• 1962 – President Kennedy challenges the nation to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade.  President Obama honors this legacy by telling NASA leadership that their biggest task was to reach out to Muslim countries and improve their self-esteem about the contributions to science and mathematics done by Muslims 1000 years ago.
• 1964 – President Johnson calls on the nation to wage a War on Poverty.  President Obama is doing his part by pursuing policies that put almost three million additional people under the federal poverty line, with minorities being hardest hit.
• 1970 – President Nixon signs the Controlled Substances Act, kicking off the war on drugs in the United States.  President Obama continues this fight against personal responsibility by using federal agents to suppress the use of marijuana as a pharmaceutical in the states that have legalized the practice.

Can y’all think of any more?  I’d hate for the President’s glorious record to be uncelebrated.

Let’s say there are two grocery stores in your neighborhood.  To be honest, there isn’t much difference between them, except for the signs over the door and one has a few more organic vegetables than the other.  One of them is the dominant store in your town, and you’ve been buying your groceries from them for a few years.  To be honest, you aren’t happy with the quality of their wares or the service you get.

So when the other store gives itself a makeover and has a bit of publicity, you decide to go over there one morning.  You buy a few things, and while things are pretty much the same as at the other store, your experience is marginally better, so you start doing regular business with them.  You notice that there are a lot of people who start shopping at the second shop at about the same time you do.

A few weeks later, you get an email from a friend.  It’s basically asking “Have you seen this?”.  The first store, the one you left because of service, price, and quality, has put up a big billboard in front of their store.  On the billboard is your name, your picture, the times you went to the other store, and the amount you spent.  It also details the things you bought, and even goes so far as to make aspersions about your character based on any run-ins you’d had with store management over the years.  They have a little section for each person who has stopped doing business with them in favor of the new store.

For a grocery store, this is pretty crass and classless. For a President of the United States, it’s shameful.

President Obama and his re-election campaign are doing something very similar when it comes to people who are donating money to the Romney campaign.  The campaign’s website is singling out individual donors to Mr. Romney and impugning their motivations and character for committing the sin of supporting Obama’s opponent. 

These are not the actions of a man and an administration that recognize the rights of citizens to support whatever political candidate or cause they want.  This is voter intimidation just as certainly as if he had posted thugs at the polls with cudgels. 

I don’t think it’s a surprise to anyone reading this that I don’t care for Mr. Obama, his politics, his values, or his work ethic.  I don’t have a much better opinion of Mr. Romney.  I’ve been very torn as to whether to vote for Romney this year.  I don’t like his record as governor of Massachusetts.  Nothing he has said during the primaries has convinced me that he has changed enough since then to make me want to support him.

But I will be damned if I will be intimidated by some Chicago machine thug from questioning and opposing President Obama, no matter who I vote for in November.  Things like this make me want to vote for Romney if for no other reason than to spit in the eye of the President’s campaign. 

Want to see me cut my nose to spite my face, President Obama?  Keep pulling stuff like this.

Recently, President Obama moved the upcoming G8 meeting from its original location of Chicago to Camp David, the presidential retreat in rural Maryland.  No reason for the move has been given by the White House.

But I think I know why:

President Obama wants to get the conference away from the inevitable protests and security nightmare so that he and the rest of the G8 leaders can have peace and quiet to rehearse “Nearer My God To Thee“, which will be recorded at the end of the conference.  Copies of the performance and the corresponding music video will be sold on the White House website to raise money for G8 countries in bad economic situations, meaning all of them.

When I’ve talked to people who know more than I do about self-defense, the thing that I’ve heard more than one person say is “Watch the hands”.  Hands hold weapons, hands point guns, and hands are used to strike the first blow.  Mouths can say things that distract or incite you, eyes can fake you out about intentions.  If you pay attention to what the hands are doing, you have a better chance of knowing what someone is going to do in a confrontation.

President Obama and his supporters are cranking up the rhetoric machine to get their political base whipped up for the 2012 elections.  Their heads are making noises, and the mob is responding.  Maybe it’s promises to finish the work he wanted to do this term but couldn’t because of the evil opposition.  Maybe it’s igniting jealousy about those perceived to have more.

But that’s not what the hands are doing.

The hands are creating “Truth Squads” to disrupt and refute those who oppose the President.

The hands are describing people who prefer to pay cash or keep the government out of their lives as terrorists.

The hands are pushing the limits on constitutionality and decency to see just how far they can go to make us comply.

The hands are circumventing the Congress through executive fiat to do things that the representatives of the people won’t vote for.

The hands are negotiating with the U.N. on treaties that could potentially impinge on our civil rights if the President and Secretary of State can get them through the Senate.

The hands are organizing unions and a rabble to create the perception of mass demonstrations against the President’s opponents.

The hands are implementing economic and fiscal policies that will drive us to poverty and financial slavery for generations.

If we want to unseat President Obama in November, we need to stop listening to his rhetoric and start watching his actions.  We need to recognize and counteract them when they threaten the opposition and the integrity of the process.  We need to make sure that no matter who sits in the White House next January, there are enough Representatives and Senators who don’t belong to the Cult of Obama that they can slowdown or stop harmful things that Obama tries to do in the event that he has a second term.

Because it’s not his silver tongue that’s going to do damage to the Republic, it’s his hands.