Why a Conservative Mormon Cannot Support Romney

With the Iowa caucus just hours away, I thought I would elaborate on some of my feelings as to why as a Conservative, Utah Mormon I reject Romney as a candidate for POTUS.

(1) Romney equals Bush.  During Bush's administration, Bush began some of our country's longest wars to deal with a situation in Afghanistan which should have only taken months.  Credit Bush for the so-called "Bush Doctrine" in which we are supposed to preemptively strike on any nation we consider a threat.  Bush imposed the unconstitutional federal mandate of No Child Left Behind, expanded Medicare through implementation of Part D, created a federal police force called the TSA, passed the Patriot Act in violation of our civil rights, and bailed out powerful wall street banks through TARP.  Bush was a disaster to Conservatism and the Constitution.  Looking back with the knowledge I have gained on political matters, I am ashamed I voted for the man.

Romney equals Bush as Romney has hired tons of old Bush staffers for his campaign.  I hear Romney bashing Obama, Rick Perry, or Ron Paul but he never seems to criticize Bush.  Perhaps he finds no fault with the Big-Government Bush agenda as his policies seem to mirror Bush's.  He's even got Bush Sr's endorsement.  Wow.  I am SO thrilled. (NOT!)

(2) Romney has endorsed both Orrin Hatch's current bid to extend his senatorial dynasty and ex-Sen Bob Bennett in his failed quest at a fourth term.  Here in Utah, it is clear Romney has courted the powerbroking establishment at the expense of Constitutional freedom.

(3) Romney appears comfortable at applying the Bush Doctrine in Iran.  It seems illogical in a financially broke, war-weary nation that one would want to do a preemptive strike against Iran under the justification of stopping them from obtaining a nuclear weapon.  I grew up under the constant and real threat of thousands of warheads pointed at my nation and yet none of those in the original "evil empire" ever took preemptive strike. If we are so concerned about a nuclear weapon in the hands of an unstable country, does this mean we also have to go to war against Pakistan and Syria?

These Muslim countries are fighting against us in large part because we are in the midst of a 21st Century "crusade" against their lands.  We occupy their countries and support dictators like Saddam Hussein and Hosni Mubarak and in some cases like Iran overthrow democratically elected leaders to establish tyrants like the Shah.  If we would leave them alone to worship as they please, there would be much abatement to the hostility towards us.  Jews and Christians which have respected Muslim worship have lived at peace for centuries in both Shi'a and Sunni countries.

As a Mormon, we believe that we have the duty to spread the message of Jesus Christ to every nation and people of the world.  We know through experience that in wartime the spreading of the message is inhibited to the point of impracticality.  Why then does Romney insist on stirring up the Persians to wrath against us through the implied threat of preemptive strike?  Surely peace is the message of Mormonism and of the Book of Mormon from which the name derives.

I cannot support Romney in his foreign warmongering policies against the Persian people.

In all I view Romney as a Rattlesnake versus Obama as an Inland Taipan; although the Taipan is much more toxic, you want to avoid being bitten by either and both require serious treatment afterwards.  The want of Conservatism is for drastically smaller government, adherence to the Constitution, decreasing the laws of the land, relief from taxation, and paying down the debt.  I am fully aware and convinced that, like Bush, at the end of his term a Romney presidency will have more pages of law, more taxation, more war, and less adherence to the Constitution.  I cannot foresee any circumstance of me being able to vote in good conscience for Romney or Obama even when I am told by people who claim intellectual superiority that I must choose between these vipers.