We watched the Democrat debate last night. There wasn’t anything else on, and we have been trying to hear some of the yapping the candidates have been spewing from both sides. I wasn’t entirely paying attention, because I was sleepy and grumpy … and already know pretty much what the questions will be and how they will (or won’t) be answered. Even without paying close attention to the race yet, I have heard the talking points more than I’d like.

Then this question was asked: Are human rights more important that US national security?

Interesting question. The kind of question I like to hear answered, because the answer to a question like that can tell you a lot about a person, presidential candidate or not.

There’s only one correct answer, in my mind, to this question. It’s a yes-or-no question too, so the answer can be really short. No babbling needed. The only acceptable answer to me is … NO. No, US national security should never be considered more important than human rights. Period. End of discussion. Of the three that were given the opportunity to answer said question, plus one who jumped in agreeing, not a one of them answered correctly according to my view. If they had a chance at my vote, they would have lost it right there. Unfortunately for those four, I had already decided against potentially voting for them on other issues a while ago.

The rest didn’t get a chance to address that question. In fact, this latest debate sucked for that very fact. Not every candidate got to answer every question, even when they were begging to do so. The moderators would allow a few (of the top runners) to respond, and then they would morph the question into an entirely different question before moving on to the other candidates. I used to do debate. This is not the way debates are run. The whole mess was a media sham, as all the debates so far have been.

So far, there are still two Democrats and one Republican who could possibly earn my vote. I don’t agree with them on everything, because that isn’t at all possible, but I agree enough to consider helping them become President. Not that it really matters in the end, because not a one of those three will ever make it to the final ballot. I doubt they will even make it to the Texas primaries. This will leave me with having to decide which of two evils are less evil and voting or that person … or not voting at all, which is still a possibility. As I have said before, that would be weird for me, but there’s a first time for everything.

In conclusion, I would just like to state as plainly as possible:

There is nothing that trumps human rights. Nothing. Not the security of my country. Not even the security of my own household. Without human rights, what do we have? We have nothing, and we would most certainly not have any form of security.

Latest debate transcript here.