My Long Awaited Thoughts on the Presidential Election

Well, I have kept quiet for quite a long time because I have always thought that personal political beliefs are best that......personal. Also, I always believed that personal political beliefs have little if no place at the workplace, which is why other than my obvious endorsement for personal friend Candy Johnson for city council, I have kept pretty mum with my political beliefs while on campus.

First of all, let me say this- no matter who you voted for, Barack Obama has earned and DESERVES our prayers, congratulations, and respect. The office of the President of the United States is an office that not only requires the utmost of reverence, but demands it. So even if you showed Bush the utmost of disrespect, every single one of you who calls yourself a Christian (or in a couple of cases Muslim or Jewish), Obama HAS to be lifted up to God in prayer everyday for the wisdom to lead our country. Alot of "white" and "evangelical" America has talked about how the election of Obama is "the end of days" and "the apocalypse". However, if McCain had been elected there was all this talk from the same group of people for "bipartisanship and unity". Well it's time to practice what you preach. Barack Obama and Joe Biden deserve the support of every single American that voted for them or not............

Now let me vent some personal musings from this election that really, for lack of a better word, irk me.

Change. That's all I heard! Change. Change. Change. I seriously saw and heard it in my sleep. This has got to be the most close minded election in the history of our great nation. I have never seen such ignorance on the voting front in my life! As I said all along, I'm an open minded enough person to support someone in any decision they make (who they vote for) as long as have made an intelligent decision and really thought the process through. That is why that while I was NEVER an Obama supporter, I respected the decision of those of you who actually thought the process through and really didn't expect him to be this wizard that waves a magic wand and just "changes" everything.

However, on the flip side....let me tell you something. Voting for someone or not voting for someone based on the color of their skin seems to be dumbest thing I've ever heard of. If you do it, that's fine, but don't act like you're an expert on the issues. Also, white people, it's time to stop being scared of someone who isn't white being President....seriously, get over it.

However, both sides have some serious issues. First, I really do not appreciate being called a "racist" just because I didn't support Obama. I would like to think that everyone reading this ESPECIALLY those of you who are minority know my heart well enough to know that I look at the person and not something you are BORN with. Like my coach in high school always said, "Life don't come with a menu". So why should I care?

Also, I think white people did a very poor job of getting on the defensive and supporting Obama for no other reason than because to "appear to not be racist". Don't tell me this didn't happen because I know it did. If you have to do something like that to appear to not be racist, my friend, you are racist.

However, I have to add. I am not black, I will NEVER know what its like to be black. You can't know 100% about anyone until you live as them. I have to say that if the tables were turned on me and whites were a minority, that a white candidate, especially if my culture had been oppressed in the past, would be extra enticing to vote for.....I get it, I don't blame any of you. Just stop acting like ONE man is the fairy freaking God father.

With all that being said, there are several things people need to realize about the election of 2008.

1- Gas prices will NOT magically go down. I could write a whole note about the Uber-Environmentalists shutting down domestic drilling to protect the habitat of wild animals.

2- Question- At the current tax rate, 55% of all federal income tax is paid by the top 5% of the nation as far as income goes. The other 45% is obviously paid by the rest of the tax paying public, which includes a 20% of the population that pays NOTHING. Now, since BOTH candidates promised tax cuts, how can you all of a sudden create all these federal pay increases, lower the national debt, pay police, firemen, EMTS, military, AND teachers more without taking EVEN MORE from the people who earned it. So many young kids talk about growing up and being rich and famous, but they don't realize over HALF of what they earn will be taken away. Anything to get votes.......nothing much changing there.

3- I am sure several of you have varied views on abortion. I am a big believer in separation of church and state, so I can't put my personal religious beliefs in favor of what should be legal. Abortion is THE MOST GRAY AREA of all political issues due to exceptions that have to be made. However, partial birth abortion is EXTREMELY hard to justify to me. The "change" the country is heading for is a bill that will push for legalized partial birth abortions. This was my #1 knock on Obama.

4- We'll pull out of Iraq. Feel how you may on the war, but this extreme liberal belief that there is no imminent terrorist threat on this country is absolutely assanine.

5- Obama supports giving driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. We talk about how Bush took away American jobs (which he did with the asylum he granted several THOUSAND Mexicans in Texas- great job George!), but what is giving people who came here ILLEGALLY a way to get around?

6- Several of you held up McCain and Obama as being two such great God fearing men. It's amazing how "religious" someone becomes right around election time.

Well, I could go on for days, but you all get the point. I'll believe in CHANGE when I see it. All I've heard Barack Obama do for the last two years is TALK TALK TALK TALK. I wanna see action, and I wanna see it immediately. You can't get me all excited about all these changes you are going to make and then give me excuses to why it can't happen.

I'll be the first person to congratulate Barack Obama on his historic victory, and I'll defend him to any freaking foreigner who wants to talk bad about him, but I have a few words to those of you who voted in the popularity contest that we called a Presidential election.

Neither candidate gave any idea of how to fix problems. They only talked about the problems that existed. Unfortunately, some (NOT ALL SO PLEASE DONT THINK I AM SAYING EVERYONE) of you Obama supporters voted on fad and just because you thought it was "cool". I have met people who can't tell me the FIRST thing about Obama- just that he was black or that he was talking about change. WHAT KIND OF FREAKING CHANGE???????? On the flipside, some of you McCain supporters voted for him just because he WASNT OBAMA- but you KNEW NOTHING ABOUT HIM EITHER!!!!! What are we teaching our young voters these days????? I seriously felt like no one was even paying attention to the issues and was busy acting like the President can wave a magic wand and make everything happy and cheerful.

All of us should pray for President Obama, Vice President Biden, and all of our elected officials. Let's pray that the Change that comes is greater than one man can bring as head of state.

Not to copy my good friend Jon Daniels too much, but the CHANGE this country needs couldn't be found in this election tonight. The CHANGE this country needs is to let GOD lead the way. So many people need the CHANGE of supporting each other and the CHANGE of actually being united instead of blaming everything on someone else. The CHANGE that is needed us embracing each other instead of pointing the finger.

Conservatives, get over yourselves, the world isn't ending. Liberals, if you put too many expectations on this man, your world will surely crumble more than you thought it did before.

Let's pray that the CHANGE we are about to receive is truly the right one.

Finally, I would like to thank those of you who actually voted for Obama for the RIGHT REASONS. I respect your decision as voting Americans, and I always love the way you at least make me think about things that I may not have thought about from a different perspective, and it's really neat to see how much stuff we AGREE on. Barack Obama himself said once that he would sit up late at night smoking cigars and playing cards with Republican senators and realized "we really aren't all that different." Let's have that attitude going into 2009 and truly use that as a CHANGE of heart.

Voted for him or not, he deserves our support as our President.