You can be gracious if you chose, it is your choice. But I will not be. I will not accept that we have come to the point that we now have a socialist president elect, no matter his color.
Have we reached a point where we are past judging a man by the color of his skin and not the content of his character? No. We, the majority of Americans, just elected a man BECAUSE of the color of his skin because if we had judged the content of his character, he would not have been elected.
There are those who will say "Look how far we have come" and that very well may be true, but will it change anything. Will the high school drop out rate among minorities now decrease? Will the 70% of minority children now born out of wedlock now decrease? Will gang members now say that they took can be president and give up their ways? No, and now we will have a president that will either pander to that segment of our society, or will be a one term president. His record is Afro-centric (just look at the bills he authored). Is that going to change?
So sorry if I don't consider this a benchmark in how far we have come as a nation. The only benchmark we have made is in the movement to become exactly what we fought against in 1776, being just like Europe. And as I watched, and fought against, the socialist movement in 1968, I now see that while we were sleeping, that movement has come to fruition. Gramsci would be proud. Our nation's indoctrination is now complete.
"What have you given us, Mr. Franklin?" the woman asked. "A Republic" Benjamin Franlin responded. "If you can keep it" he added.
I have voted in every election since John Kennedy. Never before have I cried at the results. Tonight I have, and Lady Liberty weeps with me.
I will try my best to remain a loyal American and support our government. Perhaps Obama has reached his zenith and will now actually work at the job for which he was elected. It will be a novel experience for him. May Americans learn the value of the freedoms we have had and resist losing them. In two years may we find a different congress that will once again put us on a Constitutional footing. I would have been happy to see a black elected if his character had been more inspiring and if he had not used race whenever he met criticism or a small challenge.
Pat, make no mistake, I love my country more than ever. But it is not my country, and what it has always stood for, that brings tears to my eyes. It is that over half it's people seem to no longer value things like duty, honor, service. If Barack Hussein Obama had the character of say, Michael Steele, I would be still celebrating after a long night.
This election was bought with shady campaign contributions from foreign sources. The media were more interested in destroying Joe the Plumber than vetting the Democratic candidate. This man is now president elect and is just as unknown as he was a year ago.
All the pundits are saying they [hope] Obama will govern from the center. No chance. He now has an absolute mandate with Reid and Pelosi and this country just took a hard left last night.
I have never thought my nation, who fought so hard against the governments of Europe would now be trying to become that which we fought against.
This is a sad day for all conservatives.
Well, the election has been run, the votes have been counted, and a President has been elected. We'll see what happens now.
The simple truth is this. Barack Obama is THE President of the United States. I won't say that he's my President, because I don't own the Presidency.
All this talk about a transformative election and a healing time is just that, talk. In other words, bovine excrement. Now Obama has to govern. How well he does in that regard remains to be seen.
I've said it before and I'll say it again, all of the problems we face as a nation are a direct result of the Republicans, when they were given the opportunity, not representing the people who elected them and not governing by the platform they ran on.
It's astounding really. I turned 18 in 1979. The first election I was eligible to vote in was in 1980. I cast my ballot for Ronald Reagan, because he campaigned on consertavie values and returning America to greatness. At the University of Texas, I campaigned for his re-election, participated in the campus debates and wrote for the Texas Review. I supported, campaigned for, contributed to, and voted for Republican candidates for 24 years to give the GOP the majority in both houses of Congress and the Presidency.
And once the GOP was finally given that in 2004, what happened? The Republicans immediately became exactly what I had voted against. They lost the House and the Senate two years later, and now they've not only further lost the House and Senate but the Presidency as well.
I forget who said it, but it's true. The Democratic party is the corrupt party, and the Republican party is the stupid party. How corrupt do you have to be to elect socialist redistributionists in the United States of America? And, more importantly, how stupid do you have to be to elect politicians who do not represent the people who put them in office or govern by the platform they ran on?
I've never been one of those "Party Right or Wrong" guys. When the Party is right, I support it. When the Party is wrong, I don't.
I live and vote on principles. Show me a candidate who runs and governs on principles, and I'll vote for him.
The entire Republican party needs to be reconstituted around the principles that made this country great--limited government, low taxation, effective regulation, national defense (that includes securing the borders), and the rule of law. If it is not, then it will remain, as it deserves to be, the minority party, while the socialist Democrats run wild.
Yeah, I know, the country and the rest of the world will suffer for it. But that's what happens when Republicans fail or refuse to represent the people who elected them or govern by the platform they ran on.
P.S.--I forget to mention that there is no honor in running an incompetent campaign and losing.
I share retire05's doubts about Obama "governing from the center".
In fact I think the very notion of "the center" as nothing but a strawman construct that is part and parcel of the problem so many of us had with our own candidate, McCain: i.e. the "center" of what?
Marxism vs. Free Market Trade?
Tyranny, totalitarianism, confiscatory government vs. individual initiative, incentives for success, and letting the people (or--worst case--local governments closest TO the people) decide for themselves what is "best for them"? (instead of some bureaucrat 'central-planner' who doesn't have a clue about what that individual's problems and "needs" are...)
Defending free commerce and free people, or allowing monsters and tyrants to enslave, torture, and kill them?
Where is the "middle ground" between any of these? A: it does not exist.
This myth of "the Center" has never set well with me. Yes, between real-world proposals, there is compromise. But when it comes to what ideas work and what ideas do not work, there is not middle ground; it either does or it doesn't. Something is either true or it isn't true. There is no "center" between the Truth and the Big Lie.
Likewise, there is no compromise when it comes to what creates and promotes Liberty and Prosperity for all. Any attempt to compromise Adam Smith's elementary principle of "what any two people freely agree to (i.e. with no "coercion") in a transaction serves BOTH parties, else they would never enter into it" is a violation of the utter and indisputable Truth of that principle.
Throughout history corrupt, power-hungry despots have have stolen wealth from its citizenry for their own constituencies, have in their greed confiscated private property in order to protect their own power base, have murdered millions of decent people who "threatened" their hold on power--and ALWAYS to the detriment to the whole of society, and to its standard of living.
Therefore, given a choice between a confiscatory, fixed-pie, mythology of class warfare and Marxism vs. the ability of human beings--through innovation, hard work, and resiliency--to vastly improve their own standard of living and the standard of living of everyone around them; given a choice between these diametrically opposed world views, there IS no "center".
Something either is so or it isn't. Free Markets either work or they don't. Marxism/Socialism has failed miserably wherever it has been tried. In many cases, Marxist governments have engaged in genocide to remove its political enemies and "the enemies of the State" (read: people who understand and speak the Truth. See:'The Gulag Archipelago'...)
If the definition of "insanity" is repeatedly trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, then repeated attempts by power-mad fixed-pie Marxist Lilliputians to impose their will on the poor souls under their jack boot--destined to fail EVERY time it is tried--is THE definition of insanity.
There is no center between sanity vs. insanity. Last night--in large measure because of, and because the party in power got swept away by an economic tsunami it did not cause the "symbolism" the choice offered--insanity almost certainly won.
I know what Pat it getting at here--but I think it is better put this way: "I hope Obama's own ego and his own intellect and an understanding of how history will judge him will cause him to more seriously weigh the real-world Insanity of the ideology of the American Left, as its mindless proponents try their mightiest to manipulate him into doing its will...".
And yes, I hope that will happen too. At least until the cavalry shows up in two years...
In that sense, Obama's own vanity and ego-centrism may be the only thing standing between the rest of us and the abyss of mediocrity, destitution, destruction and death at the hands of our enemies foreign and domestic (who are, trust me, chomping at the bit right now)--and ultimately--the death of the American Republic itself.
This is certainly a terrifying moment in our history. But it is important that we who believe in the rightness of the American experiment do not give it up without a fight. We will lose some ground in the next two years, of that I have no doubt. It is not a question of will it be bad, it is a question of how bad will it be?
Still, as long as freedom, free trade, and individualism exist anywhere, the American dream will still endure.
As the fall of the Berlin Wall showed clearly, a philosophy that is so fundamentally flawed can never survive for long--even when those defending it imprison or kill those who know better.
There IS no center. There is only right and wrong.
Last night, I am pretty sure we got it wrong. But as long as I am breathing I will continue to fight for what is right.
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