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This mildly understood mode of abuse is probably the most dangerous and devastating to its victims. This insidious type of abuse inflicts damage upon others lives in relentless and cumulative ways through illegal drug use, alcohol, false teachings, liars, cheaters, in short by those who betray us. A common example of this is when a partner restricts the movements of their other half, basically keeping them away from family and friends. This means isolating them, and not allowing them to communicate nor engage with family or friends for fear of them wising up to what they are going through. In the end they lack confidence, and in the extreme, harm themselves in a desperate bid for attention.

Spiritual (mental and emotional) abuse can be defined as having your creations destroyed by betrayal and treachery, or being betrayed by a loved one. It can also result from loving someone who is dishonest and corrupt, or maybe even someone who perhaps focuses in a narcissistic way on their own mind, body, or even material objects, rather than on the supposed loved one. These selfish abusive partners are more concerned with control, dominance, or playing mind games, than to actually give of themselves to others. They also tend to deny the vast scope of the supposed loved ones spiritual powers, and do not live up to the loved ones’ principles, codes, or virtues.

This form of abuse is more damaging than actual physical abuse as it is hidden, and tends to demolish the dominated partners’ self-esteem. However because there are no obvious signs of abuse, i.e., bruises, etc., this is overlooked. If the injury were visible, the abuser would end up before the court, facing an assault charge. It would also be more difficult to hide from outsiders just what is going on behind closed doors. These cowards that inflict this evil treatment on their so-called loved ones don't deserve to have a partner.

Our Courts of Law, however, do not recognize spiritual and emotional abuse for either gender, making the situation worse for the abused, and therefore the abuser, the coward, continues to inflict this evil treatment on someone they claim to love. (In these cases, male instigators are not often the sole abusers. There is a basketful of female culprits as well.)

Another important aspect of this behavior occurs when there are children in the relationship, as they become exposed to it. The youngsters pick up on the bad vibes between mom and dad, causing them to feel unhappy and confused. Often children blame themselves for the confusing behaviors they witness. To make matters worse, in later life, these children will often repeat the same patterns of behaviors they saw when they were involved in adult relationships.

It becomes clear how the whole family unit can become emotionally abused by one selfish parent. It’s clear that these unfit couples who carry unresolved emotional issues, should think very carefully about having children. Otherwise, it is unfair on the child. In the extreme, couples often believe bringing a baby into the equation will solve the difficulties they are having. This approach is totally misplaced and often brings in a whole host of new problems. A child needs stability in the home, if it has any chance of growing up without emotional problems. Also if a youngster witnesses abusive behavior, then it is likely to inherit these traits in adulthood and it more likely than not develop into a vicious cycle.

The next time your partner disturbs your spirit to the point that you feel a humongous sense of inexplicable pain, run.

But when the people of a town, city or state exert their right to vote without open, honest elections and with a secret ballot they run the risk of choosing cowards and fools to public office; who will lead us into wars, do away with simple protections, destroy our families and children, promote slavery, use torture and mercenaries whenever they feel it necessary, murder the Americans they are supposed to protect, and leave our borders wide open? If those are not the ideals you hope to attain, then perhaps you were not voting as instructed on the State's machines. It is necessary to educate people to think differently.

Officials are supposedly standing guard in every county and state to help avoid electronic or other electoral fraud from occurring. The idea is to protect fair and honest elections with secret ballots, so that no citizen is intimidated when they vote. These official protections were deemed necessary since electoral fraud has an ancient tradition and those who crave for power and control of our government are constantly seeking new ways of changing outcomes, either by commission or omission. There are individuals and even small groups of voters who are not above using deliberate trickery to gain an advantage and give a few more votes to the candidate they favor.

Although voting machines have been around for decades, they were proven to be noisy, heavy and hard to move around. As a result, their use was fairly limited.

Counting votes on punched cards by computers . . . The beginning of the new millennium, combined with an abrupt and violent collapse that brought on disastrous consequences of the 2000 election, brought in new dangers in the form of electronic voting machines whose technical complexity is beyond the knowledge of local election officials. Control of elections by state and federal government was also increased. These changes were falsely designed to increase the convenience and decrease the cost of elections.

One of the biggest complaints relating to these electronic voting machines, is the lack of a paper trail with which to verify results. Even worse, these new machines are susceptible to hackers, or deceitful programmers.

In practice the results of these changes have often been disastrous and public trust in elections and official has dropped sharply. Still, election officials exerted force on citizens to vote on these machines and insist they, and the voting machine companies, know what is best. With this they screeched out a high-pitched noise, You shall trust us.

The Registrar of Voters Tony Anchundo, who in the November 2006 election in California, requested and expected voters to wait in long lines to vote on Direct Recording Electronic and instructed poll workers to refrain from revealing to the voters that they may ask for a paper ballot and avoid the wait. Of course, the voters blindly trusted Anchundo only to discover that it was obviously a bad idea. Hence, he pled guilty of 43 criminal counts, including charges of forgery, fraudulent appropriation of funds, embezzlement, altering of accounts and grand theft of nearly $80,000 of the county’s monies.

Still, election officials are demanding that we vote on these ancient machines and have faith in the results. The method by which an election can be stolen isn't as important as the fact that electronic voting with a capital "V" inflates like dough the means by which election fraud can be accomplished while taking away protections that in other times existed. Counting votes electronically in a black box in large measure makes ineffective the morality of a secret ballot. We have climbed from a secret ballot to a secret count. If the members of our state or other political communities cannot verify that ballots are counted precisely then to manipulate the vote count in the black box is fairly easy to imagine.

Another problem is that the election officials have been shown to be arithmetically challenged. When Direct Recording Electronic voting was introduced, a couple to none of them had taken the time necessary or used intelligence to perform the simple calculation that shows only about 70 voters are able to use one Direct Recording Electronic in a typical 12-hour voting day. (An example - 12 hours = 720 minutes, averages 10 minutes for each voter to vote = 72 voters per machine. This process forces citizens to stand in line for hours to vote on unreasonably costly machines the people do not trust, and that have proven to be unpopular.)

Another cunning maneuver to gain an advantage created by Help America Vote Act is a voter’s registration database for citizens to confirm that they are registered in the database, what about the fraudulent registrations? Any hacker, contractor, or administrator can easily add as many registered voters they want to add, where in the past, those contemplating election frauds had to literally corrupt each county’s voter registration database. Today, they can corrupt a whole state with one hack.

To worsen the problem, most nearby regions also permit citizens to register by mail. When one uses this method, the citizen may mail in as many voter registration forms as her or he would like. Except when the ones who commit an illegal action are so careless as to mail in all the registrations in a single envelope, and all in the same handwriting. Once a mail registration form is accepted, the wrongdoers simply requests an absentee ballot and votes it. Naturally, signature verification on the mail ballot matches the signature on the fraudulent form. The situation is worsened by the use of electronic polls books, particularly when those e-poll books are using wireless communications.

As the use of no excuse absentee ballots went to 50% or more of all ballots cast in many elections, rather than fix the underlying problems many election officials proposed holding elections entirely by mail. Excuses like cost and convenience was put forth as justification for using such an admittedly fraud-prone method of voting. However, cost and convenience, particularly for election officials, should not be of real importance in such a fundamental process.

1- Some people have already decided not to vote because the last President never did anything for them. Even those who had strongly voiced their opinions on issues affecting the country were ignored by the President who went forward promoting his own agenda.

2- Approximately half of all Americans will vote because as an American citizen, it's what they're supposed to do.

3 – Another considerably sized group will not vote because from past experiences they really believe that their vote will not be counted, given the ancient voting machines and the newer electronic machines that can easily be hacked, and which do not provide a paper trail for post-electoral verification.

4- Then there is a sizeable Demographic group of Americans who will vote according to their religious convictions, which many believe got Bush into the White House, and they are known as right-wing Christians.

Understanding the people's views on the above three, I cannot comprehend number four. How had religion come to cuddle with politics?

I was raised in a Catholic home and I went to Catholic school. I do not remember attending Mass or religious instructions nor the Priest speaking about politics or of politicians, not even in my Senior year when some of us were nearing the voting age. Religion and politics were not discussed in the same breath. The teachings were that religion is inherently personal.

I also do not recall my Priest reading a scripture from the Bible and then speaking as a matter of fact about politics and politicians. The two were respectfully separated and discussed when appropriate. During my last year, my religion class involved the history of Christianity and the Catholic religion. Politics was discussed only during our government and history studies.

Who's the first to bring politics before the face of God? How had this mixed bag become a norm for some people? When had the political leaders become representatives of this country through the words of religious leaders?

Giving careful thought to religion and politics, I watched to see how this worked and I still cannot understand the hype (but I do the reasoning.) My suspicion is that the God some preachers worship isn't in heaven but located in his bank.

Had the leaders come forth for those people in this country who lack faith in themselves and the ability to make a conscientious decision on their own? I know that many Americans only follow the leaders and rely on others to make their decision as to what is best for this country. (Where's the independence? Is this a new way of free-thinking?) Some people are followers, and depend on the leaders to make decisions for them. I cannot comprehend this slavish attitude, but I do know that religion and politics have sprung in recent years to be used for political advantage.

In 2004, Republicans (campaign) partied with their selected religious leaders. There is more than a handful in this country for those interested to choose from to fit their own ideals. You know, listen to what the leaders have to offer and then decide. "I like what this leader is saying to me, so I'm going to go by his words." "Nah, I don't like this leader's way of thinking. It doesn't jell with my ideals. Let me hear what the other leaders are talking about. Perhaps I'll hear what I want to hear to make up my mind whom I should vote for."

Religious leaders delivered a great deal of talk during the 2004 presidential election and the Republicans wasted no time catching the pieces of information they felt were favorable to their agendas. Still, today, I cannot comprehend how a religious leader can verbalize publicly that if we vote Democrats this country will be run by homosexuals, abortion clinics, terrorists will attack us daily and that the only one to save us from this are the Republicans.

The comedy of errors is that some people had actually taken those leaders words to heart. What a way to go when one lack’s faith in themselves. Hilarious though is to learn that those leaders were involved in extra marital affairs, homosexual affairs with male prostitutes, sexual predators of the worse kind and/or preyed on children. The icing on the cake, quite a few Republicans had their share of corruption, lies and dirty deeds.

The Democrats cannot get off that easily. Plenty of information about those religious leaders could have been discovered before 2004. As well, all the colors Bush used to spell out terror attacks upon us at any given moment. Yet in the same breath, he suggested that all's under control, go out, have a good time, spend money, go the movies and restaurants and to the stores before we begin to encounter serious problems with the economy. He spooned it to us and most swallowed the words. The Democrats could have used the information as leverage, but they chose to show emotion in the face of the bluffing, poker playing Republicans.

Is the time now for a positive change? As individual Americans with bursts of energy and strong spirits, wouldn't it work best to think for ourselves, conduct our own research, look up information and study the candidates who are closest to saying the truth on issues important to us; which politician is best to handle the mess left by the former President and bring back what the United States of America means to all of us? Most Americans believe, We the People first.

Have faith in yourself when you vote November 2008. Rely on your own research and studies to conclude who will be our next President. Sway from relying one-hundred percent on the media, polls, religious leaders (who ought to stay focused on lecturing religion, not politics.) Let's show strength and independence. Only you can know who's right to run this country.

Let's believe that as American citizens, we can look inside a candidate and choose what is best for this country with independence. May all voters this coming election, choose honest candidates. Truth matters.

CORNERSTONE

"I've only heard serious arguments that preachers who use tax-exempt assets such as churches to promote specific candidates may be crossing the line. If that's what the preachers are doing, then he's just as bad as the rest. I believe that talking politics in church cheapens religion."

2- Daily Times Newspaper - Thinking Aloud: Politics, Elections and God by Razi Azmi 11-4-04

"Modern and contemporary history is replete with instances of rift, violence and bloodshed when state and politics are infused with religion. Western and central Europe, now an inland of peace, stability progress and prosperity in a sea of instability, poverty and violence, was a theatre for war and bloodshed in the name of religion only a few centuries ago. Heretics were burnt alive and battles raged to preserve religious purity. It is due to this historical experience that Europe is now averse to mixing religion and politics and so tolerant of religious differences as to be a magnet for those fleeing religious persecution in other countries. Europeans learnt long ago that religion and politics don't mix well."

3- Peace Signs - Politics and Religion don't Mix or Just not Your Politics? By Leo Hartshorn 6-21-05 /

"We live in a dangerous time in which mixing religion and politics can be volatile, like mixing fire and fuel."

"We should not let politicians or anyone else define God for us. It may be true that we will never have a consensus of whom God is or is not. But when anyone stands up and opposes the forces of logic and reason and directs us to go to war or act with hatred toward anyone without explaining it, it is time to call him on it and ask them to stop playing God."

5- Kathleen Kennedy Townsend - "Failing America 's Faith - How Today's Churches Are Mixing God with Politics and Losing Their Way."

"For millions of Americans, faith defines who we are. We are not judged by the symbols we wear or use in our speeches, but we are judged by our actions and by the quality of our religious practice."

6- Walter Jones, R-NC, introduced a bill that would allow churches, temples, mosques and other houses of worship to channel donations directly to political campaigns, and to use church resources to help elect or defeat specific candidates without losing their tax-exempt status. Even mainstream religious sentiment is strongly against it. Seventy-seven percent of clergy believes houses of worship should not be involved with political endorsements. Dozens of religious groups, including the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs, The Presbyterian Church Washington Office, The Central Conference of American Rabbis and the Congress of National Black Churches have signed a letter to Congress denouncing the Jones bill, saying, "Tying churches to partisan activity demeans the institutions from which many believers expect unimpeachable decency."