I am totally wigging out!!! Tracy got to speak with Governor Haley at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Harrisburg, PA. They talked all about HelloVoter.com & apparently Nikki totally loved the HelloVoter idea! I literally squealed with glee when I saw the photos & I just can’t get over the idea that Nikki Haley likes the project!!
   I cannot thank Tracy enough! This totally made my day! Heck, my week, my month, my YEAR! I’ve been a huge fan of Nikki Haley. I think she’s such a wonderful example of femininity, strength, grace, & fiscal conservatism.
   And the very fact that she loves my project? Eeeee! Can’t even put into words how awesome this is!

   I want to offer a ridiculously gigantic THANK YOU to Tracy & Governor Haley!!

   Oh, and by the way… everybody raise your hand if you think Nikki Haley would make a phenomenal choice for the Republican Presidential nominee’s VP pick!
   *emphatically raises hand*

   If you post HelloVoter notes, you’ll have a smile as big as Grover Norquist’s!

   Tracy met Mr. Norquist at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference in Harrisburg, PA. She told me that Mr. Norquist absolutely loved the idea & promised to check out the site! (*waves at Mr. Norquist* Hello, sir!) I can’t even begin to tell you what a huge honor it was hear that news!
   Of course, I guess that means I am now a member of “The Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”. Oops. Oh well! I suppose they’ll appreciate having a registered Independent in their midst. I’m sure I can expect my Right-Wing Conspiracy ID card & super secret code name in the mail soon. :)

   Be sure to check out Mr. Norquist’s organization, American’s for Tax Reform!

   A great big HUGE thank you to the fabulous Tracy Lee & Mr. Norquist!

   The first installment is all about laying the foundation for holding President Obama accountable for his decisions & policies which have contributed to rising gas prices. What’s more, we’re using President Obama & leading Democrat’s own words to prove the validity of holding presidents accountable. Then we look into what President Bush was responsible for during his two terms. We then compare & contrast that with President Obama’s behavior.

   Believe me, this is only the beginning!

   In the coming days & weeks I’ll be updating our Obama’s Record page with even more information. We’ll talk about President Obama’s record of restricting oil leases, shutting down production along our coastlines, and setting the record straight about Obama’s attempts to take credit for any increase in domestic oil production.

   As always, if you have any suggestions, sources, information, stats, or statistics you’d like to share, we’d appreciate your help!
   Any information you provide that’s posted on the site will of course be credited back to you!
   Click here to send them to us!

   I’d like to thank my friend Tracy L. Connors for her help with sources, information, proof-reading, outreach & inspiration! Check her out on Twitter & on her blog!

    I had the idea for this site the day before Andrew Breitbart died. I’ve been a fan of his & a regular visitor to his various sites for ages. I loved his understanding of media, his use of technology, and his titanium spine.

    A friend of mine is a writer at BigJournalism.com. I talked to him that night, ran the idea past him. He encouraged me to move forward, even mentioned that he’d be willing to put it in an article.

    That first night as I was feverishly putting this site together, I kept getting butterflies in my stomach. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, ‘Wow! Maybe I could finally meet Andrew Breitbart! What would he think of the project? What would he do? How would he handle this? What would he do with this part of the site? …What would he think of me?’
    It pushed me. Hard. Eventually I paused to take a short nap. When I woke up, I heard the news. I thought I was having a bad dream.

    The shock just made me work even harder. And harder. Those nap breaks got pushed farther & farther apart.
    But I never stopped thinking, ‘What would Breitbart do? How would he address this problem?’

    This is my first ever attempt at real political action. I’ve always been so petrified of making a stink of offending people. Even though I spend so much time delving into politics & history, even though I hold pretty firm opinions, I was always hesitant to open my mouth. It also further complicates matters that I have a lot of Liberal friends & family members.

    Starting in 2008, when I learned more & more about Barack Obama, I slowly started to open my mouth. But it’s been hard. That reluctance to cause a fuss is still there.
    But I have no choice now. I have to do something. I have to adopt that titanium spine that made Breitbart who he was.

    I hope you’ll forgive me as I’m sure I’ll make a few missteps along the way. To borrow a phrase, this is my first time at the rodeo. But I hope you’ll join in & I hope you’ll help.

    Because we all have to be Breitbart now.

Awesome photo from the fine folks at HillBuzz

   We’ll be using the Tumblr page as an additional gallery for all the photos submitted of notes posted & found all around the country! This will allow our users another opportunity to show off their work, connect with other HelloVoter fans by using the #HelloVoter hashtag, help spread the news about the movement by re-posting official & fan-created HelloVoter content, & generally jump right into the whole movement feet first!
   After all, this movement is all about peer-to-peer discussion, so the more venues we have for people to connect with each other, the better!

Click here to check out our Tumblr page!

Why I Am Politically Independent
Originally published Nov 2, 2012 on HeatherShow.com

    I’ve been thinking about how to define my personal political beliefs for a very long time now. I’ve been doing a lot of research, a lot of reading, a lot of listening. I’ve been watching roughly five news shows every single day for the past two and a half years, carefully choosing them to hear from each and every side. I still can’t find any term, any name, any label, that really describes what I believe. So on election day 2010, I’m going to try to describe it in my own words the best way that I can.

    I’m not a Republican; “compassionate conservatives” seek to control others because they think they’re more righteous than you. I’m not a Democrat; liberal progressives seek control because they think they’re smarter, you’re weaker. And lest we forget, they’re infinitely more tolerant & loving than you are.
    To borrow a phrase from Cass Sunstein, you just have too much Homer Simpson in you to know what’s in your own best interest, intellectually, morally, or socially. So it’s up to him, up to the government, up to bureaucrats, to protect us intellectually/spiritually inferior weaklings from our own stupidity, ignorance and bigotry. It’s government’s duty to “nudge” you toward the correct decision. Or better yet, to massage the options available so that each presented choice is the right choice, as determined by them, the self-proclaimed “Choice Architects.”

    No, thank you.

    What it all boils down to is control, control over you, control over me. No matter what the motives, no matter how golden the intentions, centralized bureaucratic control cannot coexist with liberty. They are oil and water. I don’t want Republicans telling me what I can & cannot do in the bedroom; I don’t want Democrats telling me what I can & cannot do with the money I earn, the food that I choose to eat, or the light bulbs I choose to buy.

    How about this instead? A third option, if you will.

    As individual Americans, let’s make a pledge between us – I won’t seek to control you, if you don’t seek to control me. If we all looked at politics through that lens, I think the entire debate would radically change. In my opinion, for the better.

    It all comes back to what I think should be the full, complete golden rule, in two parts. The first half we all know – do unto others as you would have others do unto you. The second part that I think needs to be added: allow others to do what you wish to do yourself. Translation: don’t seek to control someone else’s life, if you aren’t perfectly fine with someone else controlling yours. That’s the trade off.

    Any time you give the government power over any individual’s life, you must accept that government eventually exercising that same power over you. Don’t think you’re special; if that thought ever crosses your mind, you’ve ventured into the realm of the hypocrite. It is inevitable – one of these days, someone you disagree with is going to have that power you so callously granted your government, thinking it would only affect your neighbor, not you. It’s inevitable in a republic that one day the “other side” will have a turn to rule, have a turn at that powerful helm, if a republic is indeed what we still have.

    That’s what I believe in politically; I believe in each person’s individual right to determine their own destiny. To reap their own rewards. To suffer the consequences of their own decisions.

    To be an adult, with all the rights & responsibilities therein.

    One such responsibility is to care for those who absolutely can not care for themselves (not to be confused with those who choose not to.) Never forget, the charity we Americans give of our own free will is at least three times greater than the rest of the world combined. (As recorded in 2008.) No government has the moral authority to dare teach us what it means to be charitable at heart, or force our hand as if we’re the greedy, thoughtless beasts.
    Worst of all, if government takes over the responsibility of being charitable, they will rob us of all the blessings involved in giving freely to our brothers & sisters in need. Government will rob the recipient of expressing gratitude & being humbled; government will rob the giver of seeing that gratitude & being humbled. There is a reason charity is so inherent in society; because it reminds us of the best aspects of our humanity. If we hand that responsibility over to the government, we lose that all important reminder of who we are when we’re at our best.

    Think of it this way. How often do we walk past a pothole and think, “Why hasn’t someone done something about that?” How often do we walk past a homeless person and think, “Why hasn’t someone provided a homeless shelter?”
    Why are we relying on a nameless, faceless someone?
    Because our government is absolving us of our human instinct to care. We paid our taxes, that was enough. Now we can sit back and complain.
    We’ve already seen it happen, so why do we perpetuate it? Why do we hand more and more of our charitable opportunities to that same nameless, faceless someone who hasn’t filled the potholes and hasn’t housed all the homeless? Private charities are so much more efficient than any government program, and yet we keep making it harder and harder for them to operate, because we let government get bigger and bigger. It makes no sense. Name me a single city or state with a large, controlling government that has actually proven to be efficient. While you waste your time looking for a single positive example of government efficiency, I can supply you with example after example – Cleveland, Detroit, hell, the entire state of California.
    Government is robbing us of the need to care for others, and in so doing, robbing us of the inherent blessings.
    In the end, though, even this comes back to control. It always does. Don’t rob collective Peter to pay collective Paul, even if Paul is in sincere need. Don’t control me, don’t force me to give to your pet project. Rather, let me give of my own free will. Because I will, when I’m given the opportunity to choose. Respect me enough as a human being to know that my humanity is still intact, and I will respect you in turn.

    When you strip away the slogans, the pomp & circumstance, when you remove all the trappings of good intentions, that’s all government is: control. Its very nature is force.

    Each of us when we reach our teenage years are blessed with the undeniable impulse for freedom, for independence. I believe there’s a reason for that, a reason greater than just to get us out from under our parents’ roof. It’s to teach us the importance of determining the course of our own lives. As teenagers we transition from the child in the backseat to the driver behind the wheel.
    Take that transition to its full logical conclusion, apply it throughout your life. Don’t choose to be forever the child in the backseat of life, allowing your government to be the parent who drives the car, who determines your ultimate destination. Drive your own car. Make your own choices.

    And let me make mine.

     Of course, please keep in mind, this site is still a work in progress. Not everything is finished! I’ve been staying up all night for many nights in a row trying to rush to get this done. So I hope you’ll please excuse the few empty pages & the relatively sparse resources at this point. I promise that over this coming weekend I will flesh as much of it out as I can!
     Of course, if you’d like to help, I’d love to hear from you!

     Thanks! And happy Hello’ing!