Today is November 4 and that means here in the US we vote for the next president. I won’t go on some long thing here about how important voting is here but I will say this. Those that know me also know that I can be pretty cynical when it comes to government and politics, but I do feel strongly that voting is an important responsibility that informed citizens have. Emphasis on “informed.”

I personally am a firm Independent (some might say Constitutionalist) and I’m extremely jaded to the very partisan nature of our political system. All the more then I feel the responsibility falls to the voter then to do the research themselves and decide on their own who the better candidate is. I also feel that the responsibility of the voter is to vote what is best for the nation, even if there are some aspects of that choice which might impact that voter negatively. I make this argument because I feel that if the nation is prospering fully then each individual has better opportunities to proper as well. So what might seem as a potential negative impact to that voter will actually benefit them, given some time.

That said I will come right out and say I have no doubts that Obama is the president that the United States needs at this time.

So, I went to my local polling place first thing this morning to take care of my civic duty. I manged to go at a good time. Just after the initial rush and before the second wave showed up so I only had to wait in line about 10 minutes. I cast my ballot for Obama/Biden and then walked out of the polling place with a smile on my face. I felt good. The weather was and is beautiful here today. It feels like this will be a good day.

A couple notes about Michigan proposals. I voted in favor of medicinal marijuana and for additional stem cell research. For the first proposal I feel that the law was structured in a responsible way and further more I am against the criminalization of most all drugs. That’s not to say I’m personally pro-drug, I just feel that there are more constructive ways of dealing with people who have drug abuse problems than the criminalization of it. For the second I rather strongly feel that stem cell research is an important area of medical and bioscience research that has wide reaching implications for the future. Michigan of all places which needs to move (quickly) to an inovation based economy needs this to pass.