These past couple of months have been trying for me emotionally. I have never been that passionate over political things. I certainly had my views and deep opinions. Many of which, in political relation, were very much opposed to what I believe now. My faith in Christ is more firm now there it has ever been. I view our duty as citizens as crucial to our Christianity. This involves us maintaining liberty through upholding our democracy, healthy political discourse, and working to come to terms on the things we agree on.

I have not been the best listener. Too often I have pushed my views. I know what it is like to be cast off or preached to or told how wrong I am and it is not healthy. I believe that we all need to open up more and seek to understand first. I will try to be better at this.

I believe in agency and empowering individuals. there are too many things that have worked to take away the agency of individuals. Our education system is broken, we imprison too rapidly, we are too quick and harsh to judge and condemn, especially people of door, we fail to hold those under sacred oaths to higher accountability, as the richest nation in the world we have too many poor (not for a lack of their effort), we are losing respect for natural spaces and public lands, and the list goes on.

We may not agree on the methods proposed but hopefully we can start agreeing on the issues and work together from all angles to figure out how to solve them. It is when we deny issues exist that we fail to find meaningful solutions before it is too late. We need to believe data and not just follow an agenda based on a political party that we have chosen to stand behind.

I think a two-party system has value because it allows opposing discussion but at the same time it can hamper that discussion because people are afraid of the backlash for not voting party lines. We need to vote for individuals that will serve our interests not just a party. This is how I have approached the past couple of elections.

I voted for Bush, McCain, Romney, Rubio, Cox, and other Republicans. I was opposed to Obama and the ACA. However, the more I study and open my mind the more I see I made mistakes. I don’t think we’ve had a great president in nearly 100 years. There is too much Nationalism and selfishness. I think Obama was good. I think Bush helped us post 9/11 though his desire to spend on the war machine was way too excessive. I think Reagan helped Dreamers more than any other president but harmed the poor and middle class with a failed trickle down economics policy and then his foreign affairs were downright wrong. I could dive into others but this will suffice.

I love what America stands for. I am grateful for leaders in trying times such as Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelts, Lyndon Johnson. They stood up for the right and did the hard thing. It was less about politics and more about holding this great American experiment together. We stand as the oldest democracy in the modern world, but we are seeing threats of that crumbling.

There have been many presidents that have failed to lead when their time came or they chose to lead poorly, but none have pushed so hard to retain their power after the people had spoken.

I was reminded this morning in an article, about the insurrections in the Book of Mormon when others sought for power and lost an election, but they, or their followers, mounted a coup and caused war because of the outcome. This happened with Amlici and Paanchi in the book of Alma. When a leader causes others to believe that they lost unfairly then it stirs their loyalists up and causes them to believe that they are about patriotism or some righteous cause, when they are not.

We must do more as a people. We must love more. We must serve more. We must consider our neighbor, even if he is the Samaritan (and probably the more so, especially if). The Savior has His outstretched for all of us. He loves us. He desires us to work in unity and love. I can do better at this myself as well.

I hope to see a great man or woman sit in the oval office sometime in my life. It might even be Biden if we give him a chance. There are many that call him a socialist or claim he has dementia but there were many who readily ridiculed Lincoln, Kennedy, and others when they were appointed. I may be disappointed but I am going to give him a chance.

I am neither a Democrat or a Republican. I disagree with ideals from both of them. I am grateful that our votes can be cast for the individual that we believe will do the most good for our country. Our democracy is still alive and I am grateful that it lives on even though some are trying to tear it down. God bless America and ever other nation under heaven!