Why I Like Mike
…Mike Lee for the Utah Senate race in 2010, that is.
Principled. I believe that Mike Lee will make principled decisions as a Senator. I think that our nation has been led into a horrible situation, primarily by people doing what they thought was right, or by doing what they thought was necessary. I don’t believe that Mike will be guided by these unprincipled concepts, but will let his decisions be guided by what the Constitution says and means. I trust that a representative who follows the Constitution (as the Founders understood it, not as it is misinterpreted by the three branches of our government today) will make correct decisions for me and my life. For the most part, this will lead them to decisions where they stay out of my life, providing only those minimal functions that government can actually accomplish where (arguably) individuals may not be able to.
New Blood. I believe that Washington has a profoundly corrupting influence on almost anyone who works there. Utah’s current Senators have been under this influence for many years, and have been changed by it. I’m sure they don’t think so, but I believe that if you examine their voting records, campaign contributions, and whom they spend their time with, it becomes apparent. Mike has enough experience with Washington (clerking for Judge Alito) to be somewhat prepared, but not so much experience that he has been corrupted. I think that having a representative who is recently from among the general Utah population is vital to them understanding and representing our needs and desires.
Hope. This is a buzzword from recent elections, but I don’t use it in quite the same sense. I think that Mike Lee believes that he can make changes in Washington. I don’t know for sure whether it is possible to change much, at least in the short term. But I need to have a representative who believes he can make a change so that he will try. Representatives who have been in the Washington scene for a long time have a tendency to have bought into the system. They talk about changing things tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes. I believe that Mike will try to change things now.
One of the most important developments in the history of political thought is the idea called the “rule of law.” Essentially what this means is that the law applies to everyone, and that the law rules in place of any individual whim. When applied to Constitutional systems, the rule of law also implies that the Constitutional law rules all. It is more important than individual wishes, majority wishes, or even other laws. I think that Mike Lee is the ONLY candidate running in the Utah Republican Senate race who understands this and believes it. In my mind that makes him the only candidate worth voting for.
