Colorblind

At first, I was kinda blah about the whole election thing. I didn't particularly like either candidate, and inevitably I voted more against McCain/Palin than for Obama/Biden. I couldn't morally justify voting for McCain because I believe in staying out of countries that aren't yours and haven't attacked you unless you're building an empire and I couldn't justify voting for Palin because a vote for Palin is a vote against atheism. It's a vote against sexual freedom. It's a vote for the same draconian bullshit we've been dealing with for a decade, but worse.

Now, I can see Obama's hope. He might overtax me and spend my money on crap I won't use, but both of the candidates would do that. The difference is that McCain would have squandered it on war and Obama is spending it on social reform, on Americans. They're also of vastly different generations. John McCain is 72. He's of my grandfather's generation. He's an early baby boomer. Barack Obama is of my father's generation. He was born under Kennedy, and grew up in the late seventies and early eighties. As a young adult, he experience the great technological boom of the eighties, followed by the great computer advance of the Clinton years. His whole life has been marked by hope, and experience that change is positive.

Barack Obama is a man of great social reform. Like Kennedy starting the Space Race, Lyndon Johnson's civil rights victories, and Clinton's expert management of the world's sole superpower, this man could be one of the great Democrats. The Obama terms will be, as the terms of his predecessors, years of great reform and economic expansion, of foreign nations once again celebrating the Stars and Stripes, and of citizens abroad and at home once again proud to be Americans, with the words, "Yes we can!" on their lips. This classic American, the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a girl from Kansas, our first black chief, has finally given me the hope that the rest of the world sees in him. King once had a dream that men would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. America has judged well this week. The Bush years are over.

I can't help but smile. I've always been a patriot, but I'm no longer worried about the repercussions of loving the greatest nation on earth.
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