Someone I don't know or who is using an anonymous email address was nice enough to take the time to tell me how much of an idiot I am and why I'm going to hell. I don't want to go into the whole thing. Let's just say it was poorly written, poorly conceived, and lacking in logic and fact. Sheesh... Moron.

I've been advertising this diary the last few days along with my email address. I guess I'll have to stop that.

To you: I just want to know exactly when it became a good thing that the government uses its coercive power to rob from people who have done what it takes in their life to make a good living for themselves and their family and then take that money to pay for people who HAVEN'T done the same and furthermore REFUSE to do the same and instead feel ENTITLED to something simply by virtue of having been born in this country. Gawd, is getting an education, working hard, and earning decent money for something as innocent as trying to forge a happy, honest life for you and your family now an evil thing? I'm sorry if you are not as fortunate as me, but... that's YOUR problem. It is evil to steal from the fortunate to cater to the lazy, the stupid, the irresponsible. I hope you can understand my big SAT words.

So we're waiting on the Oregon vote and all the absentee votes from the military. Gore's popular vote win is not a certainty. But he is probably going to win the electoral vote in Florida.

There are supposedly 19,000 votes in Palm Beach which have been discarded as invalid. They were punched twice. Two candidates were chosen. I'm sorry. These people FAILED the IQ test... I have no sympathy. I've seen the ballot. It's not the *best* designed ballot in the world, but there was no confusion that I could see. Look, if you're too stupid to even fill out the ballot correctly, you deserve what you get, which is that your vote doesn't count or counts incorrectly. Sorry. It is the voter's responsibility to vote correctly. The ballot, designed by a female democrat, I might add, seems clear to me.

For maybe the first time in the last 8 years, Gore has referred to the Constitution. Wow. I was under the impression Clinton/Gore either didn't know what the Constitution was or didn't care what it meant.

As far as why we should consider amending the Constitution to rescind the 12th amendment... To me it's about percentages and third party candidates. Popular votes make the percentages gained by third party candidates much more important and legitimate. And that will help infuse the American consciousness with new ideas, which the two major parties have worked so hard to snuff out by such things as the electoral college, the two party only debates, and the enormous cost of running a presidential campaign.

I confess... I voted Democrat in 92 and 94. I was young and idealistic. I also didn't know very much and didn't have much experience with political thought or economics. It's easy for me to forget how I was back then. Yah, I wanted to be green, to have the government help everyone no matter the costs or repercussions, to control eeeevil corporations. I wanted to be like my favorite rock stars and my liberal friends. I wanted to "fight the power" and all sorts of fluffy crap like that. I thought the Republicans were the devil. I thought Republicans were racist, sexist, bigoted elitists. I was also laboring under some very sad misconceptions. I was such an imbecile. I was blind. I wasn't thinking about things. I was immature. It's easy for me to forget that other people haven't learned what I've learned the last decade. Others haven't read The Fountainhead, the Federalist Papers, Locke's Second Treatise on Government, Tocqueville's Democracy in America, Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, various works by Jefferson, Madison, Brennan, Hobbes, Newsweek, National Review, etc. Others haven't grown up with someone as politically aware as my father. Others haven't taken political science classes from the illustrious Dr. Paynter or Economics classes from Dr. Doyle or philosophy class from Dr. Dougherty. Others haven't listened to Charley Jones. Others haven't spent amazing amounts of time and notebook pages thinking about politics and truth. I'm of the opinion that many people have never even read the Constitution. It's also bothersome that the Libertarian party, that which most accurately reflects the way the country was originally framed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, is consigned to picking up under 1 percent in every state.