I'm Proud
How can you not be proud to be an American today?
For the record, I'm one of the people that Obama was addressing last night when he talked about people "whose support he had not earned", and also for the record McCain did not earn my support either. I am a life long Republican, however I cannot support what the Republican party has turned into. To me being a Republican means keeping the government out of your business as much as possible and exercising good stewardship over what they do have to get involved in. The present iteration of the Republican party has not done that and for that reason, I could not support their ticket. The fact that McCain, in order to become the Republican nominee, had to run away from what made him the only Republican who could have won this election I think demonstrates precisely what is wrong with the party. I hope that the unprecedented electoral butt-whoopings of 06 and 08 cause some long difficult discussions in their inner circles, and lead them back to where they should be. But enough, this isn't what I wanted to talk about.
I'm so proud of how my country's system worked yesterday. Gone were the talk of hanging chads and butterfly ballots. Yes lines were long, but by all accounts the people in those lines were good spirited and energized, happy to be there. We fundamentally changed the nature of our government yesterday, and just as we have done every four years for the last couple of hundred, we did it peacefully. In a world where "throw the rascals out" can still mean a bunch of guys in uniform bursting into the ruler's office and carting him off to jail, we did it differently. People stood in line and expressed their will, their votes were counted and the will of the majority holds.
It's often said that under adversity, ones true character emerges. If that is so, then John McCain revealed himself as a true patriot last night. His speech was so classy, I loved listening to it. He reflected the slogan of "Country First" perfectly. Senator, I expect you to go back to the chamber and show everyone what it means to be fiscally responsible. The elephant in the room that no one would talk about during this campaign was the fact that we are a relatively short time away from needing every tax dollar we currently take in to pay entitlement benefits. That system is broke and you sir, can still play a huge role in fixing it. Yes, you lost last night, but you still have such an opportunity to serve your country. Go back to being the person that every Democrat was scared would be the nominee this year and you will serve us well.
I know there are ardent McCain supporters out there who are convinced, or at least concerned, that we just took a step towards being the Soviet Union. My advice to them would be the same as it was to the people who greeted the results in 2004 with the wailing moans, the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth. Relax. America will persevere. There will be some changes over the next four to eight years and there will probably be more things that you will disagree with than there have been, but relax. America will persevere.
The President Elect's speech was perfect. It was a victory speech for sure, but he took great care not to hang up the Mission Accomplished banner. It was a speech of inclusion, of unity. It exhilarated me, but it didn't surprise me, we all knew that he had that speech in him. Now it's time for him to show some leadership and start getting the country headed in the direction it should be. Mr. President Elect, you are the first President of my generation. You have a a tough row to hoe ahead of you, you will have my support because you are the leader my country has chosen, but I'm giving you that support on credit. Now it's time to earn it.
All of the above isn't what made me the most proud last night though. I think we showed something else about ourselves last night. For the past few months, there as been a school of thought that has said we couldn't do what we did last night. People said that America was an inherently racist nation and that would either undermine Obama's chances completely, or at least make it a lot closer than people thought it would be. Well, we proved them wrong. Sure, there are people whose votes were cast this year on the basis of race, but those people didn't hold sway. I think that we, as a society showed ourselves a lot better than a lot of people gave us credit for yesterday.
I had a bit of an epiphany last night. I was watching some of the reaction. There was a black reporter on CNN, I don't remember his name, but as he was commenting after the race was called, you could see that he was being overcome. That the emotion and the history of the night were starting to hit him. Then I started watching the crowd shots, and seeing the looks on black people's faces. There was a lot of joy there, and a lot of - relief. You could see in some people's eyes that they didn't think this could happen. I think there were a lot of black people that were scared that it couldn't happen.
I remember back in 1996 when Simpson was acquitted of butchering his wife. I remember some of the reaction of the black community back then and I remember that it repulsed me. How could someone take joy in such an obvious miscarriage of justice. The conclusion I drew was that there was a not insignificant portion of the black community that was happy because, for lack of better words they had "stuck it to whitey". The purpose of that little detour in this post was to contrast what I saw in 1996 with what I saw last night. Last night was not about sticking it to whitey. Last night, I saw the faces of many people who thought they would never have a seat that the table, that the system simply would not allow it. They got the seat at the table last night, and the joy that they realized at that point, well that made me proud to be an American.
I'm not naive. I know that we didn't fix the racial issues in this country last night. But we took a step, and a pretty darn big one at that, last night. And I'm proud; I'm proud of my country; I'm proud of my fellow Americans; and I'm proud to be an American.
For the record, I'm one of the people that Obama was addressing last night when he talked about people "whose support he had not earned", and also for the record McCain did not earn my support either. I am a life long Republican, however I cannot support what the Republican party has turned into. To me being a Republican means keeping the government out of your business as much as possible and exercising good stewardship over what they do have to get involved in. The present iteration of the Republican party has not done that and for that reason, I could not support their ticket. The fact that McCain, in order to become the Republican nominee, had to run away from what made him the only Republican who could have won this election I think demonstrates precisely what is wrong with the party. I hope that the unprecedented electoral butt-whoopings of 06 and 08 cause some long difficult discussions in their inner circles, and lead them back to where they should be. But enough, this isn't what I wanted to talk about.
I'm so proud of how my country's system worked yesterday. Gone were the talk of hanging chads and butterfly ballots. Yes lines were long, but by all accounts the people in those lines were good spirited and energized, happy to be there. We fundamentally changed the nature of our government yesterday, and just as we have done every four years for the last couple of hundred, we did it peacefully. In a world where "throw the rascals out" can still mean a bunch of guys in uniform bursting into the ruler's office and carting him off to jail, we did it differently. People stood in line and expressed their will, their votes were counted and the will of the majority holds.
It's often said that under adversity, ones true character emerges. If that is so, then John McCain revealed himself as a true patriot last night. His speech was so classy, I loved listening to it. He reflected the slogan of "Country First" perfectly. Senator, I expect you to go back to the chamber and show everyone what it means to be fiscally responsible. The elephant in the room that no one would talk about during this campaign was the fact that we are a relatively short time away from needing every tax dollar we currently take in to pay entitlement benefits. That system is broke and you sir, can still play a huge role in fixing it. Yes, you lost last night, but you still have such an opportunity to serve your country. Go back to being the person that every Democrat was scared would be the nominee this year and you will serve us well.
I know there are ardent McCain supporters out there who are convinced, or at least concerned, that we just took a step towards being the Soviet Union. My advice to them would be the same as it was to the people who greeted the results in 2004 with the wailing moans, the rending of garments and the gnashing of teeth. Relax. America will persevere. There will be some changes over the next four to eight years and there will probably be more things that you will disagree with than there have been, but relax. America will persevere.
The President Elect's speech was perfect. It was a victory speech for sure, but he took great care not to hang up the Mission Accomplished banner. It was a speech of inclusion, of unity. It exhilarated me, but it didn't surprise me, we all knew that he had that speech in him. Now it's time for him to show some leadership and start getting the country headed in the direction it should be. Mr. President Elect, you are the first President of my generation. You have a a tough row to hoe ahead of you, you will have my support because you are the leader my country has chosen, but I'm giving you that support on credit. Now it's time to earn it.
All of the above isn't what made me the most proud last night though. I think we showed something else about ourselves last night. For the past few months, there as been a school of thought that has said we couldn't do what we did last night. People said that America was an inherently racist nation and that would either undermine Obama's chances completely, or at least make it a lot closer than people thought it would be. Well, we proved them wrong. Sure, there are people whose votes were cast this year on the basis of race, but those people didn't hold sway. I think that we, as a society showed ourselves a lot better than a lot of people gave us credit for yesterday.
I had a bit of an epiphany last night. I was watching some of the reaction. There was a black reporter on CNN, I don't remember his name, but as he was commenting after the race was called, you could see that he was being overcome. That the emotion and the history of the night were starting to hit him. Then I started watching the crowd shots, and seeing the looks on black people's faces. There was a lot of joy there, and a lot of - relief. You could see in some people's eyes that they didn't think this could happen. I think there were a lot of black people that were scared that it couldn't happen.
I remember back in 1996 when Simpson was acquitted of butchering his wife. I remember some of the reaction of the black community back then and I remember that it repulsed me. How could someone take joy in such an obvious miscarriage of justice. The conclusion I drew was that there was a not insignificant portion of the black community that was happy because, for lack of better words they had "stuck it to whitey". The purpose of that little detour in this post was to contrast what I saw in 1996 with what I saw last night. Last night was not about sticking it to whitey. Last night, I saw the faces of many people who thought they would never have a seat that the table, that the system simply would not allow it. They got the seat at the table last night, and the joy that they realized at that point, well that made me proud to be an American.
I'm not naive. I know that we didn't fix the racial issues in this country last night. But we took a step, and a pretty darn big one at that, last night. And I'm proud; I'm proud of my country; I'm proud of my fellow Americans; and I'm proud to be an American.