FOR FAITH, FAMILY AND FREEDOM

Tuesday, 8:15 AM.  35 degrees F, wind S, light with moderate gusts.  The sky is overcast and it is raining lightly.  The barometer predicts more of the same.
        The leaves are all down now, and the last tourists, snow birds and boaters have gone to where ever they winter.  The seasonal businesses are all closed and those few of us who remain have assumed winter attitudes of more or less grim survival.  It is almost time to put the bird feeders up, as I haven’t seen a bear in weeks.
        Election Day is here, and predictions are as unreliable and diverse as they were months ago.  And that is probably a good thing, since I at least view virtually all the polls as flawed in one way or another, and few if any are large and diverse enough to be relevant, statistics not withstanding.
        Anyone who regularly reads the Almanac knows my political and environmental views, for which I have few apologies.  But I probably owe at least a few interested readers a final philosophical declaration concerning why I will vote Republican today.  For President, Vice President, Senator, Congressman and state and county offices.
        The reasons for my partisanship can be summed up in three words, which are  probably not very original:  Faith, Family and Freedom.
        By Faith I mean not just my personal Christian religious beliefs, but a fundamental belief in a just God, a higher power and evolving creative force, from which our American Constitution, civil laws and social compacts all devolve.  What man ordains, other men can deny. What their Creator has endowed mankind with, other men cannot take away.
        By Family I mean not just my own, but the recognition that the traditional family is the basic unit of society, the atoms with which all other aspects of human society are built. When governments ignore or denigrate the family  unit all the institutions of society are threatened.
        By Freedom I mean individual liberty as endowed to us by our Creator and defined by just laws.  Without individual freedom all governments are despotic, no matter how altruistically they are constituted or defined.  Utopian theories and obtrusive governments,                                                whether inspired by religion, social and economic equality or any other well-meaning concept, are fraudulent destroyers of individual liberty and the human spirit.
        I am of the opinion that the current administration has neglected or actively eroded Faith, Family and Freedom on a continuing and massive scale, and that another four years of the same will be devastating to our nation.  I therefore humbly suggest that you cast your vote in support of these fundamental values.