My niece's husband, (Natalie's father) was asked to run for Congress. It's not even in his district, which I had no idea was legal. He said he has no disillusion of getting more than 8 votes. He just wants to get his thoughts and ideas out there. Here are his views on his blog.

A LITTLE ABOUT ME

I was born and raised in Maryland. The oldest child of a single mother who raised my sister and I on her own struggling to make ends meet. Fortunately we come from a close knit family who was always there to help. I learned early on to always be grateful for what you have and to never take anything for granted. I was taught that even if you don't have much, you can always be thankful for your health and your freedom. Respect for others and responsibility were also cornerstones of my upbringing.

As a teenager I enlisted along with my best friends in the Marine Corps. We felt obligated to serve our country, mainly out of respect for those who sacrificed so much in its defense.

Today I am married to a wonderful woman who supports my sometimes crazy ideas (like running for office). Together we have a beautiful baby girl that amazes me everyday.

Throughout my life I have always been enthralled by our nations history. The more I learn, the more I make connections to todays society. I have always heard the saying, "Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it." I am finding that to be all the more relevant everyday.

POLITICS

As are most Libertarians, I am a staunch supporter of the Constitution. When Enlisting in the Marine Corps I took an oath to defend it from ALL enemies, both foreign and domestic. On that day I did not just affirm to uphold the ideals of that revolutionary document only for my term of enlistment but for the rest of my life. I have been striving for quite a while to get people to educate themselves about the ideals set forth by the founders on what our nation was meant to be, and the twisted mockery of itself it has become.

With legislation such as the so called "Patriot Act" and the "Military commisions act" we are having our freedoms pulled out from under us - By the very people we choose to protect our free society! I know I am not the only one who sees this. We must work to see these tyranical impositions of authority abolished.

According to the constitution the President cannot legally declare war, it is a task specifically designated to the Congress. Yet, once again our governments sacred document was usurped by those swearing an oath to uphold its laws, and so our troops were sent to supplant the dictatorship in Iraq. With my military background I have nothing but the utmost respect for our fighting men and women, and I know that those brave, honorable Americans want to see this conflict through to the end. They are not quiters, it's not in their character, but the time has come for our government to hand control over to the Iraqi government, period. We cannot afford to expend the lives of our best citizens in the interest of building nations around the world. Nor can our ailing economy afford the $650 BILLION dollars to build yet another nation in our image.

ISSUES:

ECONOMY: It is plain to see that our economy is taking a serious turn for the worse. Unemployment is up at 5.5% banks are being shut down, and there are even fears of our nations two largest mortgage backers cannot sustain themselves. Yet we keep hearing the same propaganda out of Washington, "We are not actually in a recession yet." they keep spouting off, as if that makes us feel better and we will run out and spend our hard earned money in a flash.

Everyone is quick to place blame on the housing market and oil prices. These are huge problems which we must work to overcome, but I feel the largest problem we have with our economy, is the dwindling value of our currency. Everyday it seems the value of our dollar drops. The lower the value goes the more dollars it takes to buy something. (ie: gallon of gas, gallon of milk, bread, eggs) We are all so quick to scream and shout, pointing the finger of blame toward the oil companies, but we need to realize that if our money was worth what it was five years ago, we wouldn't have to use 3 dollars to buy something that was only 1 dollar five years ago.

"How did our money lose it's value" The easiest explanation I can come up with is this... Whenever there is a economic problem in this country, the government wants to do what it does best, throw money at it. So they ask the Federal Reserve to lower the interest rate, which in reality means to PRINT MORE MONEY. Think of it this way, if you had a 1936 Babe Ruth basebal card, and it is worth $2000 because it is only one of 20 left in the world. Well, tomorrow the card company decides to make 2000 more of that card, now your precious high value card is only worth $200 because there are more out there. The Federal Reserve is the baseball card company, and instead of Babe Ruth, it's George Washington.

In yet another classic Washington decision, they decided that to boost the economy they would send everyone a "stimulus check." That way with some extra money in our pockets we would go spend it on a new TV or some clothes at the mall. I don't know about you, but my check went toward paying my mortgage, and my excessive energy bill. There was no new TV in my living room!

This is exactly what I am talking about, throwing money at a problem. We once again put our childrens futures up as collateral to borrow money from China to throw it at the economic downturn. Does anyone really feel like the economy has improved since this ingenius idea took place?

These are only a few of my positions if you would like to know more, I will be posting more on the issues in the blog section from time to time.