The Ten Cannots - Obama or McCain - Vote Your Heart

In this particular political season it is difficult for many to make a choice. I am an aging person of 45, but I see young people excitedly more than ever getting involved in the attempt to make a correct political choice. I learned how to make that choice over time, and many years of quite frankly making wrong choices sometimes, but also learning a true fact. There is no perfect man or woman, but if we carefully study the choices in front of us…we can each make a choice that is the best we can make at the time we have to make it. You need to establish your own personal CORE VALUES and make your personal, political, business, and love choices the same way. So many are misinformed, so many have been raised not with true knowledge of particular facts, but have let their choices be made from the standpoint of popularity without research. Some popular people are great and legendary success stories… BUT SOME POPULAR people are idiots. Each of us as Americans has to make our own personal choice…sometimes in difficult times and under seeming circumstances of duress. But, in the end at the voting booth, a choice must be made. There is no doubt that Abraham Lincoln was a great President. He was responsible for many great things. However, due to a pamphlet passed around quoting him from his days and also quoting these cannots that were written in 1916; he is often accredited with quoting another man’s great comments. We religious folk are quite used to the attempt to live our lives according to the Ten Commandments. However, another great man William J. H. Boetcker is responsible for the TEN CANNOTS. Those are similar to the Ten Commandments, but intended to bring to our minds the criteria of judgment we should each bring into our own responsibility for voting. Ronald Reagan mentioned them at the Republican Convention in 1992…a mere 76 years later. Without prejudice of any sort, if I could give any of you advice on how to vote, or whom to vote for in any given election; I would demand of you that you read these simple TEN CANNOTS and then make your choice according to your own gut feeling after you’ve considered all ten options. Ten thoughts are not so much to ask of your consideration when making the choice to pick the next leader of the free world, or even your local city council person. After careful consideration of each of these ten cannots; if you choose the person that epitomizes them all (or the greater majority of them compared to the opponent), then you have chosen the right person. As for me and my household…this November…we’ll vote for John McCain. THE TEN CANNOTS: · You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift · You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong · You cannot help little men by tearing down big men · You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer · You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich · You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money · You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred · You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn · You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence · You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves In my life when I thought I had nothing and no way to get something; people that believed in these ten things taught me how to gain it all, and then provide it for others. I can’t think of a simpler way to say how to make YOUR American dream come true than to grasp hold of these ten cannots. And, for those of you that are number nuts…1776 was the year our nation became real. Seventy Six years ago is when William J.H. Boetcker penned the ten cannots. The rest is up to you…vote your heart.