More On Parenting And The 2016 Presidential Election:
Special Report: How Parents Feel About The 2016 ElectionHow To Explain Political Ads To Kids During This Crazy Presidential ElectionI’m A Parent And Here’s Why I’m Voting For Hillary ClintonA Cheat Sheet Of All The Presidential Candidates’ Family-Specific Policies
Parents don’t take an Oath Of Office – as elected officials must do – and that fact has long puzzled me. If an officeholder is going to guide any part of our wellbeing for even a brief period of time, he or she must swear to preserve and protect those cherished rights of the citizens within the purview of that office for so long as he or she fills it. It was once a comforting feeling to see an elected representative select a cherished book or other document and swear, affirm or pledge by that document to have our best interests foremost in mind whenever options are considered or decisions are made. I suppose that, at some point in our evolution, we subjects could rely upon such an oath and we believed that if it were intentionally violated, some unseen force — probably the one behind that sacred item underlying the oath — would materialize and smite the perfidious bastard. At the very least, we knew that Santa would put coal in the offender’s Christmas stocking and toads would give him or her warts in all the wrong places. So much for politicians’ oaths and our reliance upon those sworn to preserve and protect; we now know that they’ll do whatever they want to and plead the Fifth Amendment to avoid any punishment. With that established, I’m still a parent and I no longer have a reliable oath fairy to keep my government focused upon my wellbeing or that of my children. So now I am the party who must swear upon whatever I hold sacred that I’ll act in the best interests of my critters and defend them against any who might be inclined to treat them unfairly. I should have done that anyway, but along the line I missed the crossover point where we began to accept the reality that many of our elected representatives were stealing from the till and endangering our heritage. But, we know that now (if we haven’t been living on Pluto). Certainly it’s time to leave Game of Thrones and address a real problem. Perhaps some “reverse engineering” can be useful in guiding a parent like me. Possibly I should start by listing the things I do not want to have visited upon my children and the things I do want them to have in their lives. Then I can work backward from that baseline to select the viable candidate who is less (or least) likely to allow those bad things to happen and most likely to promote the desirable. Then I should let it be known to the candidate exactly why I’m going to be a supporter, so there can be no mistake as to the mood of the constituency. Let’s give it a try:
I DON’T want my children to be blown to bits in a mall, at a football game or anyplace by some delusional zealot who thinks God will reward them for doing so.I DON’T want my kids saddled with a lifetime of debt, incurred to pay ransom to those delusional idiots or to support the lifestyles of satraps in faraway places.I DO want my children to live and work in a meritocracy, where they will be more likely to achieve a better lifestyle if they are willing to do their best work and to maximize their skills.I DO want to be able to pass on to my children the fruits of my lifetime work, rather than having those swept up by a government agency for redistribution as they see fit.I DO want voting to be limited to those who are legitimately citizens of the constituency and who have its best interests in mind, and I want them to have to identify themselves just as they must to enter a government building, a ship or aircraft, or to vote in any other nation in the free world.I DO want immigrants to my country to enter legally and to be persons who possess skills and attributes which can improve our nation – and I want them to adopt the mores and standards of their new country and to blend with their new neighbors rather than clotting in an unhappy gaggle of themselves.I DON’T want my children’s loyalty to be purchased with the promise of any “entitlements” beyond those which are set forth and guaranteed in our Constitution.
There – that wasn’t as hard to put together as I expected. I’m really saying that I have the primary responsibility for my children’s wellbeing, and I should cast my vote for the candidate who I believe will most closely work to accomplish my “DOs” and avoid my “DONTs”. And so, I’m voting for Trump. Robert Neff is a Cornell University graduate who served as a JAG officer in the USAF. He became an international business executive with the Rockefeller Brothers’ IBEC, then was CAO and Director of Seaboard World Airlines, a USFlag cargo carrier, now part of Federal Express Corporation. He now writes professionally and his World War II novel Uber Alles can be purchased through all major book sources. More On Parenting And The 2016 Presidential Election:
How Parents Feel About The 2016 ElectionHow To Explain Political Ads To Kids During This Crazy Presidential ElectionI’m A Parent And Here’s Why I’m Voting For Hillary ClintonA Cheat Sheet Of All The Presidential Candidates’ Family-Specific Policies
