Don't be fooled again... and again... and again

There is an article going around the interwebs that says that large numbers of military absentee ballots were delivered one day late and not counted.  The "article" goes on to state that preliminary counts of these ballots would have put Romney over the top.  One problem, it's not really an article, it's a blog post.  It is satire.  Very good satire, this guy could write for The Onion, but satire non the less.

The blog doesn't even pass the smell test.  The US Military postal system is very efficient.  In fact that efficiency played a key role in the movie "The Battle of the Bulge" when German Col. Martin Hessler explained to his superiors, while holding a cake mailed from an American mother to her service member son, that the Americans had enough fuel and the logistical support to mail cakes across the Atlantic and get them to their intended recipients while they were still fresh.  He knew the war was over for Germany then, even if his superiors didn't.

My point is, don't be fooled by things like this.  They are written to be funny but the authors LOVE IT when people take them seriously, as SNL alum Victoria Jackson did.  When you are desperate you tend to believe anything that supports your position  You ignore the "smell test" and rush right in.  Use the common sense that God gave you and if you still aren't sure about a story you saw posted on Facebook, there's your first clue, then do a quick search on Google and see what real news sources are saying.

More importantly, don't be desperate.  To paraphrase my good friend, Jonathan McGuire, 'Don't be desperate, be informed.'  When you post stories that aren't verified and spread gossip you make a fool out of yourself and your fellow travelers.  Don't make a fool out of yourself and please don't make one out of me.  I say and do enough foolish things as it is.

I "owe" my vote to no man, or party

Several of my friends who support Mitt Romney have told me that my support of Gary Johnson for President will just siphon away votes from Gov. Romney and help usher in an Obama victory.  They act as though my vote belongs to Romney already, by virtue of my natural conservatism or being a Republican, and that casting a "protest vote" for Johnson will only help Obama win reelection.  I even had a friend tell me that the Obama campaign should be running ads in support of Gary Johnson to peel off support from Romney.  Here are at least two problems with that argument:

1.) My vote doesn't "belong" to anyone other than who I think is the best candidate and will do the best job in the office they are running for. In the 2012 Presidential race that candidate is Gov. Gary Johnson.  Second place isn't even close.

2.) To my knowledge there is zero (0) empirical evidence that, on the whole, a vote for Johnson is "stealing" a vote from Romney.  If the only options this year were Obama and Romney I couldn't guarantee you that I would actually vote.  In that scenerio, if I did vote, I would probably take a page from Monty Brewster and choose "None of the Above."  That's how strongly I feel about both major party candidates this year.  They're terrible.

However, there have been several polls that show that votes for Johnson could be coming at the expense of President Obama.  Here is an article from the British paper The Guardian that shows that, at least in Colorado, libertarian support for Gary Johnson is coming at the expense of President Obama.  So Mr. President, as my friend suggested, please start running ads encouraging liberty minded individuals to vote for Gary Johnson.  Pretty please.