the voting process
Let me begin by saying that I don't really understand why your vote is supposed to be secret. If you support a candidate, shouldn't you publically support him or her, and encourage people to vote for that candidate? Ah, well.

But that aside, I finally decided to vote Libertarian -- Badnarik -- in this year's presidential election. I realize he is about as likely to win as I am to win the lottery. Still, I don't believe I should vote for a candidate I wouldn't want to see in office. That eliminated Bush and Kerry fairly easily. Of the third parties, the ones I liked best were Green and of course, Libertarian. I found the Libertarian position on the issues I feel most strongly about to be more clear-cut than the Green party's.

Firstly, small government. Both my ideals and the ideals of the Libertarian party support this. The government should exist to serve the people, not the other way around. All the government should do is uphold the Constituion -- that is, to protect the life, liberty, and property of all Americans. There are too many government programs that do not fall under these lines. Let private organizations take care of the extra things that government has taken on, such as Social Security and welfare. As an added bonus, this would lower taxes.

The War in Iraq. Badnarik's position is that we should bring our troops home, and if you know me you know I am all over that. Bring the troops home! Stop making the U.S. out to be the world's police. That isn't our job. The U.S. used to be all about not mingling in needless world affairs, but our leaders seem to have forgotten about that. And obviously, I'm against a draft, and so is Badnarik. Keep the Army a volunteer army. Those of us who don't want to fight aren't going to be good soldiers anyway.

Civil liberties. It's in the Constitution. The Patriot Act is not constitutional. It infringes on our liberties. Get rid of it. Yes, it's important to make sure that government agencies are able to talk to each other, but you don't need to infringe on our rights to do that. In addition, the genders of two people who are married is not of the government's concern. Either remove government involvement in marriage completely, or grant equal rights to both different-sex and same-sex couples.

Finally, abortion. This is the one area where I kind of disagree with Libertarians, but kind of agree. They say that the federal government should not control it, leaving me to believe they think it should be left to the state governments. But is murder against federal or state law? I would believe it is federal. So if murder is against federal law, abortion should be against federal law, too. But I am willing to sacrifice this one point, because Libertarians do at least oppose tax funding for abortion. The abortion battle is not one we are going to win any time soon. People as individuals need to realize that unborn babies are people too, before people realize that abortion is the same as murder.

As for Maryland's elections, I honestly didn't put as much thought into them as I did into the presidential election. I know, I know, I'm a horrible citizen. I did do a little bit of research on each candidate before voting, though. I voted on the same principles I described above. There were no other Libertarians on my ballot, however. I realized too late I could have done a write-in for a Libertarian candidate. Sigh.