Roberts: First, let me thank you for this opportunity to get my views out there, I appreciate it. You also have to know that I am not a lawyer, nor am I a politician. So when I give you an answer it is not carefully gauged to get me the greatest advantaged, it is just me and my honest opinion. I am also not as smooth as a lot of politicians so I may be a little rough around the edges.

Now, with my story… I grew up in Orlando, Florida mostly. My father was in sales, and my mother worked at a bank. My father faced a change in his life after leaving the Air Force and started back to college where he was studying business. I attended Boone High School until 1987 and graduated from Florida Christian College in 1993, with a Bachelors’ Degree in Preaching and Education. I am married to a public school teacher and together we have four daughters and live right here in Orlando. I just completed my Masters in Business Administration with a minor in Accounting a year ago and I own an accounting and tax business.

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TPW: What is your current church/religious affiliation?

Roberts: I am a member of the Christian Churches , a non-denominational, conservative church.

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TPW: What political parties have you been a member of?

Roberts: Republican Party from 1992 on.

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TPW: What political offices have you campaigned for, if any?

Roberts: None.

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TPW: What political offices have you held, if any?

Roberts: None.

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TPW: What made you decide to run for United States Senate in Florida ?

Roberts: I have been a supporter of the GOP for as far back as I can remember. And while I didn’t agree with everything they did, the GOP was the party that I identified with. I supported Bush through everything right up through the completion of the last election. The day after the election was over, I was disappointed, naturally, but not surprised. I had seen Bush hand over education to Ted Kennedy, try to appoint an inexperienced jurist to the highest court in the land, and call the Minutemen a group of vigilantes. But the day that Bush recommended “Amnesty Mel” to head the RNC, I concluded that the GOP either didn’t know why they lost, or that they didn’t care. And I was tired of waiting for “someone” to “do something” so I did it.

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TPW: Why did you decide to run as an independent rather than challenging Martinez in the Republican primary?

Roberts: Because Mel is going to have the full forces of the RNC behind him, the recent vote to confirm him to the position of head of the RNC against all Parliamentary Procedure proves that the RNC will run around rules to get what it wants. Besides, I was extremely let down by Bush’s decision to nominate Mel and have become disenchanted with my GOP.

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TPW: Why did you decide to run as an independent rather than joining an alternative party? Have you considered joining the Libertarian Party? Constitution Party? The America First Party?

Roberts: The Libertarian party has an Open Borders policy I could not swallow. I have considered the Constitution Party as well as the American Party, and I have no issue with what I know about either of them as of yet. I don’t rule out becoming the candidate for either party right now. What I want to do is unite those who are simply tired of sending politicians of the same fiber to Washington . We need to protect our country because it is being piecemealed out to other nations in the interest of getting along. We’ll see what happens in the next year and a half. I have time right now.

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TPW: Your website suggests that you want America ’s borders closed by any means necessary. How much do you estimate that will cost to achieve and how do you propose paying for it?

Roberts: The truth is that we spend more money every year housing illegals in prisons than it would cost to build the border fence. I would deport all of these prisoners the day the fence is complete and we can be sure they won’t enter our country again. In a year we have paid for the fence. But, I am not counting the money we spend funding the 40% plus of all births occurring in California to illegals or the money we spend in government programs educating or giving health care to illegals’ children, or the money we spend in law enforcement, etc. I believe out of all that, that we could find funding to close our borders.

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TPW: Your website says that you support the Fair Tax. But under the fair tax some enforcement agency will be needed to handle tax collections. Changing the name of the IRS while maintaining its functions is pointless. The Fair Tax will indirectly become the means of an ever-greater expansion of government. Why not abolish the federal income tax and replace it with . . . nothing?

Roberts: I do not have the time and your article would be huge. I recommend reading the Fair Tax Book, this is a common misconception you have about it. I’ll say this, if the Fair Tax would actually lead to a greater expansion of government, then the Democrats would have voted for it years ago. As for not collecting any federal taxes at all, we would have no way of funding important federal projects like the military, protecting our border, etc. That would be a bad move.

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TPW: Your website says that you want our military to destroy our enemies, stop the PC garbage and enable our intelligence to use the techniques that work to get information and kill the bad guys. Who are the bad guys?

Roberts: The Insurgents in Iraq . They are the radical Muslims everywhere whose sole goal in life is to kill as many infidels as is possible. We cannot reason with them, we cannot co-exist with them, they are the bad guys.

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TPW: Do you think American Muslims should be allowed freedom of worship here?

Roberts: Our country was built on the foundational idea of the freedom to worship the god of choice to the individual. I do not believe in these times that we can deny the right of innocent American Muslims to worship, nor should we. However, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. If American Muslims don’t start standing up against the radical nature of Islam, and stop groups like CAIR from orchestrating the whole flying Imams event on board the plane, (which I believe was all faked from the start) then there will be some serious backlash that even the federal government won’t be able to stop.

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TPW: What should be done now concerning Iraq ? Do you advocate immediate withdrawal of our military from all overseas deployments?

Roberts: I would like to see a complete defeat of the insurgents. I would like to see an arrangement that Iraq pay us back for the millions we have spent there, perhaps in an arrangement for oil trade. I do not advocate the withdrawal of our military from all overseas deployments, but I do from some of them, on a case by case basis.

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TPW: Your website says you want to return to conservative Judeo-Christian values. What are those values?

Roberts: We have moved so far away from our foundations that it makes this question relevant. We used to believe that study of the Bible was important, we used to believe that prayer was important and that treating each other as we would want to be treated was a good thing. But now if a child prays in class, the ACLU is there to sue. If the Koran’s history is a course in public school, that’s fine, but the Bible? The ACLU would again be there to sue.

There are those advocating the removal of the Ten Commandments from the Hall of the Supreme Court, from all government buildings because that supports one religion over another. These are the values under attack that we need to band together to defend.

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TPW: Why do you use the term Judeo-Christian? I think I have an idea what Christian values are, but the term Judeo-Christian sounds pluralistic at best and blasphemous at worst. Why do you use it instead of plain old Christian?

Roberts: I am not sure I accept the premise of the question. The term Judeo-Christian as I understand it is the incorporation of the values of the Ten Commandments, the values of the One God and the teaching of the New Testament about the person and nature of Jesus. I believe the Bible is one book, and that includes the Old Testament too. I fail to see how that would be considered blasphemous.

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TPW: Your website also says that you want to keep government out of our lives as much as possible. How does that jibe with Christian values? What about sexual behavior? Do you think it is the proper role of the civil magistrate to prosecute people for sodomy, adultery, and/or pornography?

Roberts: You are confusing the term value with the concept of free will. Christian values are held personally, closely. As a Christian, I do not believe that a sexual relationship with anyone outside of marriage is right. But I also do not believe that it is the governments’ role to prosecute people for it either. As a Christian, I believe that sodomy, adultery and pornography are to be avoided, but neither do I believe that it is our job to investigate what people do in their own homes, we are given free will to either obey the precepts of God’s Word or not and no one should impose their will on others. I hold the values that say that such behavior is wrong, but do not believe it to be my place to squeeze others into the mold of my value system.

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TPW: What about gambling? If elected senator would you facilitate or resist its presence and expansion across America ?

Roberts: I’m kind of ambivalent on gambling, truthfully, we have more important issues to attend to like the security of our nation.

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TPW: On your website you say that abortion should always be illegal? Does that include cases of rape and incest?

Roberts: For me, it comes down to the simple question of is this, for lack of a better term, “entity” growing in the womb a person or not? The tragedy of a rape or a pregnancy as a result of incest cannot be made better through the taking of a life that is completely innocent of the actions of his father. But truthfully this is always the red herring used by pro-abortion advocates. The statistics show that less than a tenth of the abortions performed are for reason of rape or incest. We cannot use an exception to prove a rule. Is this a human being in that womb or not? If it is, then there is no excuse for taking of their life. Read my article on the website, “Death is Not a Choice” and you will understand my views on abortion.

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TPW: What is your opinion of the so-called life of the mother exception for abortion?

Roberts: As above, I do not believe that an exception should be used to prove a rule. The actual percentages of abortions performed for that reason are in the extremely rare cases. Using that exception an attorney could easily turn the word “life” into “life-style” and open the door to the same abortion for convenience that exists today.

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TPW: As Senator would you vote for the Right to Life Act?

Roberts: Absolutely, it grants protection to all pre-born humans.

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TPW: On your website you list education pretty far up on your list of budget priorities and you advocate national standards for government schools. Yet you also say on your website that you do not believe that the federal government has any legitimate role in education. I am confused. How do you explain this contradiction?

Roberts: I was rating a group of budget items on priority alone, not on whether the federal government should have a role in it or not. Education is important, so on that scale I put it up there to reflect that. That doesn’t mean that I believe the federal government has a legitimate role in education, funding or otherwise. It would be better entirely to privatize the education system and let a private industry do the job the federal government cannot do. In our school district in Orlando , our schools spend almost $8000 a year per student. And still there are students graduating without the basic skills they need to survive. A privatized industry could educate our children much better for less than half of that amount.

That was an arbitrary scale anyway, how does one separate homeland security from defense? How is that rated differently? My answer to this is the same answer I have for other issues. Get it out of the hands of the federal government and let the states decide for themselves!

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TPW: On your website you say that you do not think that foreign aid programs should be scaled back or eliminated. Where in the Constitution is Congress given the power to take money from Americans and give money to foreign nations? Doesn’t that contradict your statement elsewhere America first, then let’s save the world later?

Roberts: There is nothing in the Constitution giving authority to the Congress to take money from Americans and give it to foreign nations, that’s true. The problem is that we have already started, the horse is out of the barn so to speak. I do believe first and foremost, that we need to stop sending aid to countries that speak ill of our nation. If a two-bit dictator wants to rant about how evil our country is, so be it, but his funding, if we are indeed supplying any, should immediately be cut off.

But let’s face it, when there is a need for help, no one runs to France . Americans are the biggest hearted people of the world, if there is a starving nation, we help. If there is a tsunami, we help. It’s just what we do.

Should we be spending billions to cure AIDS in Africa ? No. Should we be spending millions to educate the masses in other countries? No. But we do it anyway, in the hopes that we might make the world a better place by doing so. But the constitutionality of it would not be an issue if we were to make it beneficial to corporations and individuals to fund it privately with the tax dollars they won’t be sending in when we enact the Fair Tax law. Because it would no longer be a federal government sending it, it would be sent by well meaning private individuals completely voluntarily.

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TPW: Regarding NAFTA, you indicate that you support it, but not in its current form. In what form do you support it? Isn’t the transfer by Congress of authority over U.S. trade policy to foreign agencies unconstitutional?

Roberts: This one is a little hard to do in a few paragraphs but we cannot become an isolationist nation. By the same token, in manufacturing or production, we cannot attempt to compete with a nation like Mexico where minimum wage would be considered an improvement. That isn’t a level playing field as I would never advocate lowering our own standards of pay to compete with theirs. Mexico cannot compete with our quality or quantity of goods produced, what Mexico competes in is in the cheap labor market. NAFTA in my understanding, led to our increasing border problem as more and more Mexican farmers were unable to keep up with the level of production of our own big growers and as such went belly up turning to illegally immigrating to America to put food on their table. Any free trade agreement that we have must put both nations on an even level at the very least.

I would not be for transferring any authority over our trade policy to foreign agencies in any way, shape or form. It should be OUR government and OUR people making the decisions that will affect our jobs and security. A free trade agreement should not detract from our nations’ security or ability to compete in the world’s market, and if it is shown that it does so then it should be ended immediately.

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TPW: On your website, you advocate increased funding for child care programs. Where in the Constitution is Congress given authorization to fund child care?

Roberts: The simple answer is nowhere. I believe you left out an important part of the equation there though. I only advocate increased funding for child care programs for those parents who are actively pursuing a job. To supply free babysitting is not the job of the government, but if it means that there will be fewer families sucking resources out of the local taxpayers in other areas, then that is a good thing. And this should really be something organized more at the state and local levels than from the federal government. If the federal government were to allow the states to keep more of the tax dollars that are sent away for all these ridiculous programs, then we would have more accountability. If the parents do not actively search for gainful employment, then they lose any right to continue with child care.

We have to turn off the welfare feeding trough somewhere. Let’s start with the adults and work our way down.

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TPW: Who did you vote for President of the United States in 2004? Why?

Roberts: I voted for George W. Bush because I believed that he would continue the war on terror and would not be afraid to destroy our enemies. I also did not believe that a President John F. Kerry would be at all positive for our nation.

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TPW: Did you vote for Mel Martinez? Who did you vote for in the US Senate race in Florida and why?

Roberts: I voted for Mel because I did not want to see Betty Castor in his seat and I believed him when he said he was a conservative.

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TPW: If people like your answers and want to help with your campaign, what should they do?

Roberts: They can contact me via the website and although we are not yet at the stage of fundraising, that is coming soon. This is going to be a truly grassroots effort as we are facing the juggernaut of the RNC having their own leader under assault for his consistently pro-amnesty positions. I will need 125,000 registered Florida voters in order to get my name on the ballot, I am betting that I can find 250,000 angry voters. The challenge is going to be that all of those signatures must be gathered between January and April of 2010 the year of the election. I need to find 250,000 angry conservatives willing to put me on the ballot as an alternative to Mel.