votekiss-blog

Politics and Religion

Sun, 23 Jun 2024 16:12:38 +0100

When I told Drew Montez Clark, who was running for Congress in FL, about the 3 legged stool of conservatism--defend the constitution, reduce government, put citizens first--he noted the seat that holds them together is God. Politics may be the vehicle but religion, as defined as belief in God and His purpose for us, is the driver.

We need only look at the beauty of creation to know that God is Good; we need only think of the vastness of the universe to know that God is Powerful; we need only gaze into our newborn’s sleeping face to know that God is Love. Whether or not you believe He came to us in the form of Jesus Christ to clarify His purpose and redeem us with His sacrifice is just icing on the cake. I think Jesus’ message--love God, others, yourself as your purpose in God’s Plan--makes life easier because it gives us solid, simple guidance. We need to stop following the threads and step back to view the miracle of the whole garment.

Our founders knew that without a firm religious foundation a republic cannot exist. A republic requires us to trust in a higher power, trust in the basic goodness of our fellow man (with some restraints on our self interests), and trust in a governmental system to dispense justice. Without those 3 things our republic will fall apart.

We are witnessing the destruction of our republic because all three of those requirements are in critical danger. I don’t know why so many people believe the opposite of those requirements, but we must fight to change their minds if we wish to save our republic.

Rebuttal to Arnie's Advice

Mon, 25 Jan 2021 16:05:55 +0100

My daughter e-mailed me a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger stating we should follow the “experts’” advice about Covid-19. When you find fewer people voicing your opinion it means you’re misinformed. Here’s what I wrote back:

A totalitarian government owns all the experts and stifles all dissent. Last year Fauci went on record saying masks were unnecessary and the shutdown need only be for a month or two. Now he's saying Trump forced him to say that--I don't trust anyone who will lie to hold his position of authority--whether he lied then or now. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/flashback-dr-fauci-claims-masks-dont-provide-covid-protection-only-help-people-feelbetter

When you find the group that you trust (because although you aren't an expert in everything you know enough to trust your own instincts) growing smaller because their speech is being suppressed, you know that Big Brother is closer than you feared! In George Orwell's book "1984" (written in 1949) he said "The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command." https://www.insider.com/george-orwell-1984-what-came-true-2019-5 My eyes and ears tell me Covid 19 is a political tool of a totalitarian left trying to scare people into submission. With a 99.8% recovery rate we shouldn't need vaccines except for the most vulnerable. We shouldn't be shutting down the economy--CA has the hardest shutdown and the highest hospitalizations: California remains the highest among states with hospitalizations. According to data last updated Jan. 20, the state had 20,062 people in the hospital for COVID-19. That’s about 1,300 less than reported last week. https://www.healthline.com/health-news/here-are-the-states-where-covid-19-is-increasing#Hospitalizations-finally-decrease

Don't let the wind drive you onto the shoals. Use the power of the wind to chart your own course. That's why I keep pushing VoteKISS, keep pushing conservative policies (which Trump used to dramatically improve the economy, end wars, and start bringing peace to the Middle East) and hopefully will triumph over Leftist propaganda that has made the color of your skin, your sex, your situation the defining characteristic of their politics.

What are conservative values?

Love God (however you worship your Creator), Love your Country (and all within it), and Love Yourself (no matter the color of your skin, your sex, your situation--you aren't a victim because you are equally loved by God and given equal opportunity under U.S. law). Love is patient and kind, forgiving and hopeful; it isn't proud and self-centered, ill-mannered and irritable.
Defend the US and state constitutions as originally intended and amended because it was a God-given blessing bestowed on us and many, many people have died defending it and worked tirelessly to improve on it!
Reduce the power, size, and cost of government at all levels because government is FORCE; it is the opposite of FREEDOM. It is only tolerated because we are a sinful species and force is often necessary to protect us from ourselves. However, absolute power corrupts absolutely--the Swamp is proof of that!

Thank you for sharing and allowing me the opportunity to express my opposition to Arnie's advice.

How to Fight A Heavyweight Left

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 18:44:55 +0100

I'm writing this as the Left has gone crazy trying to eradicate the Right: censorship by Big Tech, another impeachment attempt with establishment RINOs climbing onboard, mainstream media furiously lambasting a riot for the first time in a year full of riots.

What can we do, those of us who voted for Trump to drain the Swamp, when the Swamp seems so all powerful? We need to train our national "big guns"--Trump, talk radio/TV hosts, and conservative news websites--on local and state politics, as the Left has outflanked us and taken the rear. Just a handful of Dem run cities and their corrupt election systems stole the presidency and the senate from us; we need to start the next battle using state and local militia led by our national generals.

How to fight a monopoly? Rush showed the way 32 years ago:
1. Choose a communication medium the Dems don't control
2. Provide a quality product your audience will love
3. Promote the Hell out of it nationally through rallies and other ways Dems don't control

My solution is for one big gun (Trump, Rush, Breitbart) to design a website for TWO-WAY conservative communication and then FRANCHISE IT: one website franchise for each state and each congressional district. The franchises would be locally owned and operated, but the national site would manage branding, promotion, and quality control. Users, however, would see only 1 website with tabs for national, state, and local political commentary.

The websites would be funded by conservative business sponsors at each level, as well as by paid membership. Members and sponsors would receive perks (based on their level of membership) ranging from voting in polls and surveys, providing commentaries and opinion editorials, to participating in website management decisions.

The ultimate goals of this network of conservative commentary websites are to:
1. Communicate to locals what conservative ideals and actions look like
2. Replace the existing polling system (which is inaccurate and biased) with the opinions of every member of the network as expressed through polls and surveys developed by conservative leadership at each level of government
3. Convert the above opinions into actionable agendas that are championed by political candidates who are then promoted by the websites during primary season.

Offering a simple, standard conservative political website for all levels of government AND offering We the People a chance to have a voice in the political process other than to vote for a letter after someone's name is a quality product that will draw an audience like flies on you-know-what!

A word about slavery

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 08:31:50 +0100

Whether it’s economic, political, emotional or physical, we are all slaves in one way or another since we are not completely free to choose our own destiny. The idea that skin color is the only thing that defines slavery is as ludicrous as the idea that there is only one type of vice in the world. Peasant, serf, or slave, 99% of humanity since we became a species has had few life choices under our control. Our country’s founders changed that: most Americans believe they have a lot of personal freedom to make choices for themselves about how and where they live. ANYTHING that reduces that freedom increases our serfdom. Big Brother, Big Tech, Man in the High Castle, Deep State, whatever you want to call overzealous bureaucracy or heavy handed institutions can be our Masters just as surely as the plantation owners of old. Let us not surrender our hard earned freedoms to such as these just to make life easier for ourselves or “fairer” to others.

Reject the premise of white supremacy!

Tue, 20 Oct 2020 08:27:46 +0100

Do I reject white supremacy? I reject the entire Democrat party premise that this nation is divided by our skin color. I reject the idea that anyone is better or worse than anyone else, or even that anyone is better or worse OFF simply because of their skin color in this country. I believe there is only one race, the HUMAN race, created by God and given by Him the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. This is a belief I share with the founders of this country, that is written in our founding documents.

Having said that, I believe the human race fell from God’s grace a long time ago, so we struggle with individual sins, vices, addictions that make it impossible for us to be perfect--individually or collectively as a nation. Therefore there will ALWAYS be imperfections, inequities, injustices in our lives, in this country and in this world. However, just as we must struggle to not let our individual vices define us but instead pursue a life that will please God, as a nation we should not let inequities define us but instead pursue policies that make us proud to be American.

I believe the heated political rhetoric has lately obscured the fact that all Americans want to pursue policies that make us feel proud to be American. Instead of focusing on those policies, however, the political parties and their supporters have resorted to character assassination of both individuals and groups, with the result that few Americans feel proud to be American. What can we do as individuals to restore a healthy national relationship?

LOVE. Jesus summed up the entire Bible in one sentence: love your God, love your neighbor, love yourself. Paul explained what love is and isn’t: love is patient, kind, forgiving, hopeful, eternal; love isn’t jealous, conceited, proud, self-centered, irritable, ill-mannered. Strive individually to exhibit love as much as you can, and our nation will reflect that individual effort.
FOUNDATION: Jesus warned us that we must build our house on a firm foundation or it will be swept away when adversity strikes. Our country was built on a firm foundation, for its founders believed in God and His gifts to humanity, but also on the knowledge of human failings and the preventive measures needed to counteract them. If we weaken either of these pillars of our nation, we weaken the foundation of our nation. Interpreting freedom OF religion as freedom FROM religion, as has been the liberal viewpoint for nearly a century, is a grave mistake. Recent liberal attacks on our country’s founding, describing it as flawed because our founders were flawed, is another grave mistake. Finally, attempts to destroy elements of our culture considered racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. is based on the false premise that you can erase sin, vice, addictions merely by removing a name or a statue or a group or a law. If we lose our shared belief in the basic tenets of this country, we lose our country.
SOLUTIONS. If we spend all our time defining our problems and focusing on our vices, we will never get around to fixing them. Our current political strategy requires solutions (bills) to be battered beyond being readable let alone understandable by the time they are put into action as law. It is time we change strategies by adopting VoteKISS, forcing politicians to stand for concrete solutions rather than vague promises or mudslinging invectives.

Let's change our (political) clothes!

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 12:43:26 +0100

We're fortunate to live in the best country in the world at the best time in history. Why?

In 2010 I was unemployed and bored out of my gourd so I decided to find out the answer to a question that had been bugging me most of my life: why is our political system and government so screwed up?

I hate complexity: it makes me feel confused, stupid, frustrated, lost, and alone. Politics is the height of complexity yet for voters it boils down to a choice between some names you don't know on a ballot (with hopefully an R or a D after their name to give you a hint about their political philosophy) and a choice to make on a local issue you know very little about.

I've learned that all complex concepts have a core, a simple and straightforward skeletal structure, that if studied often makes the complex parts manageable. We live in the best country in the world because our political core takes 30 minutes to read: the U.S. Constitution. Yes, to really understand it you need to read the User's Manual (Federalist Papers), and since it's a living document it needs to be annotated with a summary of the major Supreme Court decisions. We live in the best time in history because all human knowledge is at our fingertips (now even a voice command), and we can access it all in our study of the U.S. Constitution. At worst it'll take you a few months of evening reading to really know the heartbeat of this nation.

Once there you'll be astonished to realize most of the complexity is NOT part of the Constitution--specifically for this discussion the political parties and how a bill becomes a law. These are just traditions that can be changed as we change clothes. In fact, these political "clothes", being over 200 years old, are torn and tattered, and in many places rotten. "Draining the Swamp" will only dye these torn and tattered and rotten clothes from blue to red.

My mother loved to knit intricate sweaters. If she made a mistake she had to unravel the sweater to the point of the mistake--and it only took pulling on one thread. VoteKISS is that one thread that if pulled starts the political unraveling process. It ends multi-million dollar popularity contests and transfers it to issues-based campaigns; its pre-written bills end lobbyist interference and back room deals between a handful of tyrants.

My mother's sweaters looked complex, but knitting requires only a handful of motions done over and over and over and...you get the idea. VoteKISS requires consensus in the front rooms of millions of Americans and that can be tricky--but if it takes voting over and over and...until we reach consensus, isn't that better than today's compromise bills nobody wants or even understands anymore? How hard is it to "like" your favorite political problem on a party website and then "like" your favorite solution to it? Then vote in favor of a representative who swears in writing to "like your like" in Congress? That's VoteKISS in a nutshell. Let's change our political clothes in 2020!

Updated FAQ question on the role of political parties

Mon, 15 Jun 2020 11:57:15 +0100

Here's an update on how political parties can use VoteKISS to focus on issues rather than politicians.

I envision the Republican National Committee (RNC) designing a website template that is duplicated in all 435 congressional districts. The RNC manages the back end (security and IT) while its local affiliates run the front end (content tailored to local politics). Everyone can view the websites but only members (registered Republicans who voted in the previous election) can vote. There are pages for federal, state, and local voting.

At the beginning of each election cycle, members vote for their 3 top issues at each government level from lists developed by the RNC, conservative think tanks, or other method. After a few months the top 3 issues are each given a list of solutions, each with a measurable outcome, for members to choose from. Once 3 issues each with a top solution (or two) are chosen by members, a bill for each issue is drawn up using the VoteKISS template: short voter summary describing what the bill does, an executive section that describes the purpose (why), and a longer administrative section that describes how the bill will be administered, including how its effectiveness will be measured and publicly displayed.

VoteKISS candidates will then sign the contracts and run against traditional (non-contract) Republicans in the primary. Voters can distinguish VoteKISS republicans by an additional letter (V) before the (R). In 2020, perhaps the bills and contract process can be done at the Republican National Convention!

War on Terrorism--what I wish the Prez would say

Sun, 05 Jan 2020 04:24:19 +0100

When I became President 3 years ago, I asked all my military people--not just the Washington generals but field generals and their staff, any war veterans that came to the White House--how they would finish the War on Terror that’s been going on unabated for decades. I got a few unhelpful answers, but a surprising number said this: identify the leaders of terror, track them, spy on them, and when you have enough evidence of what they’ve done and what they’re planning on doing, unmercifully kill them.

All terrorist attacks have one thing in common--the only goal is to inspire terror among their victims for ideological reasons. That most of their victims could care less about the terrorists’ ideologies does not concern them; the only good human is a human who believes as they do and the rest are bomb fodder.

So I told my military people this must be a War of Intelligence, not boots on the ground, and they should concentrate their efforts on identifying the leaders of terrorist organizations, track them, spy on them, hand me a list of the worst offenders and I will give the order to unmercifully kill them. There are thousands of unsung heroes and heroines in this story who did the grunt work of collecting, analyzing, and prioritizing a huge amount of data on terrorists. They don’t parade around in the media beating their chests and claiming how they are keeping the nation safe by leaking information and glorifying wrongdoers. They understand that this war can’t be won by subjugating nations but by holding those individual miscreants to account.

The list of names and places started out small but has grown larger--over 2,000 terrorists and their strongholds have been identified, tracked, and very specific information about them has been collected. We know their motives, their financial resources, their allies and close associates, their supply chain. Most of these terrorists smugly believe their activities are clandestine; a few, like Soleimani, brazenly fly around the region openly meeting with known terrorists to plan their next attack. Unfortunately, the vast majority of terrorist leaders are Islamic extremists--those who believe that to be a good muslim requires the forced conversion or death of any non-muslim, or even a muslim who doesn’t believe their extreme views. Of those Islamic extremists, a vast majority have provable ties to the current Iranian government: their leaders are Iranian or have declared alliances with Iran; their finances, supplies, or training come from Iran; or their ideology and sympathies align with Iran.

For over half of my lifetime we have been terrorized by vicious attacks spawned by an ideology that is the antithesis of American values. We have tried to ignore it, live with it, placate those responsible, pay them off, fight them with conventional weapons and tactics. It’s time to fight fire with fire: for every one act of terror, a terrorist or terrorist stronghold will be destroyed--believe me when I say with the least amount of civilian casualties possible. It is not the Iranian people, for whom I hold the deepest sympathies, but their tyrannical leaders I hold responsible for the world-wide atrocities committed in the name of religious zealotry.

It is to Iran’s leaders, then, that I make this promise. You do not want American troops in your neighborhood--neither do I. In this we are in agreement. We do not want your ideology anywhere near U.S citizens, who believe in and practice freedom of religion. If you refrain from trying to force your ideology on the world through terrorist acts such as bombing or cutting off the heads of innocent people, we will both have a win-win: I will joyfully withdraw U.S. troops from the middle east. If you insist on continuing with your favorite tactic, I have personally drawn up a list of 53--well, it’s 52 now that Suleimani is gone--targets and one will meet the same fate as Suleimani for every terrorist act that can be traced to you or one of your allies or sympathizers. So you better hope that the strings you’ve attached to these killers are strong enough to be yanked back before, as a line in one of our more famous movies puts it, a house drops on you too.

For those of you in the fake news media panting to publish a list of those targets, only I know what they are so you can’t claim they were leaked by some “patriotic” bureaucrat. Only I will give the order for the next target’s destruction after a careful analysis has been made of the next terror attack. I do not give such an order lightly; however you may try to paint me I am a Christian and an American who has grown up valuing human life.

It is my hope and prayer that the promise of personal destruction in response to acts of wide-spread destruction will end the War on Terror. Please, to whichever God or Belief you pray to, pray for the same.

40 Years of the Global Warming Scam

Tue, 12 Nov 2019 00:23:15 +0100

It amazes me that Jane Fonda, ultimate 80 year old lefty, still believes we're going to be destroyed by man-made climate change after hearing the hysterics of this movement for 40 years with NO CHANGE to the ocean levels. The oceans will fill with our garbage long before the oceans will fill our coastal cities. This is the ultimate political scam, for the only way to solve a global problem, lefties believe, is to have a global government solve it by taking away the rights (and money) of individuals. Righties believe when there's money to be made (or other personal motive) in solving a problem, it will be solved by the brilliance and hard work of individuals. A bit of both is needed, I think, as each opposing philosophy can go off the deep end. I received the below post and had to chuckle; I hope you will too.

"The Arctic Ocean is warming up, icebergs are growing scarcer and in some places the seals are finding the water too hot according to a report to the Commerce Department yesterday from the Consulate at Bergen, Norway. Reports from fishermen, seal hunters and explorers all point to a radical change in climate conditions and hitherto unheard of temperatures in the Arctic zone. Exploration expeditions report that scarcely any ice has been met as far north as 81 degrees 29 minutes. Soundings to a depth of 3,100 meters showed the gulf stream still very warm.

Great masses of ice have been replaced by moraines of earth and stones, the report continued, while at many points well known glaciers have entirely disappeared. Very few seals and no white fish are found in the eastern Arctic, while vast shoals of herring and smelts which have never before ventured so far north, are being encountered in the old seal fishing grounds. Within a few years it is predicted that due to the ice melt the sea will rise and make most coast cities uninhabitable.

I must apologize. I neglected to mention that this report was from November 2, 1922, as reported by the AP and published in The Washington Post 97 years ago. Snopes verified the article did in fact appear in 1922!" https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/warm-welcome/

The Importance of Political Parties

Sun, 06 Oct 2019 16:09:49 +0100

I've been living in Denver for 4 years now and received my first voting packet for local office: city mayor and city council. I was shocked to discover every candidate was listed as "non-partisan", meaning no affiliation to a political party. I'm typical of most Americans, I think, in that I'm not that knowledgeable on local issues. However, I gamely tried to research what the candidates believed, and for the most part found a couple of paragraphs that almost universally claimed "affordable housing" as their most pressing issue, a list of meaningless job positions previously held, and of course touting themselves as the most worthy candidate.

I ended up not voting for any city council position or for mayor, because I refuse to vote for someone who probably doesn't represent my core political values: less government intervention in the lives of its constituents means more personal freedom for those constituents (but on the negative side also means more personal responsibility which can lead to personal failure).

This experience made me realize how the Left continues to control most of the big cities--by eliminating competition simply by not allowing that competition to advertise its existence. They are now working to make this a national trend by eliminating free speech in the name of eliminating "hate speech" and requiring "politically correct" behavior. California is trying to eliminate Trump on the ballot by requiring his tax returns to be made public. These Orwellian tactics are becoming frighteningly mainstream.

I believe we need to add to the VoteKISS constitutional amendment. We need to add that ALL political candidates in the United States MUST be a member of at least one registered political party that:

Must maintain a website that clearly states its basic political beliefs (planks); states political solutions to its most pressing political issues; and publicly tracks the political activities of office holders that list it as a party member.
Must have at least one member (ie I am a member of the VoteKISS party--right now I am its only member!).
Requires affiliated political candidates to include its name next to theirs on the ballot.

For example, I am a member of two parties, and as a candidate on the ballot I would have VoteKISS Republican following my name. This gives voters a clear idea of what my basic political beliefs are. For more info they need only visit the websites of these two organizations to learn more and to track how closely I followed those beliefs if elected.

In this way voters will be able to quickly identify the candidate that most closely resembles their personal political beliefs and can track how closely elected officials follow the political beliefs they claim to hold.