Wednesday, November 7, 2012

So Obama's Won Again...

I'm going to do my best to NOT make this a "bad winner" rant, but I already know that the Tea Party is throwing conniptions over Barack Obama winning re-election, so I'm going to try to spell this out in as non-partisan a way as possible.

Formally, America has been around for 236 years. In that time, it has survived a full-blown revolution, harsh weathers and hard summers, smallpox, polio, cholera, bird flu, e coli. and AIDS. It has survived the Civil War, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, and countless battles with Indian tribes (which I'll refrain from elaborating on, for these purposes). It has survived two World Wars (one of which nearly wiped out everyone outside of Germany), the Cold War, and various other conflicts of varying and debatable importance.

It has survived the Great Depression, and several other recessions that rivaled it. It has survived the 92 percent tax rate on the rich, it has survived Reagonomics, it has survived various labour crises and it has survived spikes in oil prices. It has survived 9/11, Pearl Harbour, Waco, Columbine, Virginia Tech, the Atlanta Olympic bombing, abortion clinic bombings, and more acts of domestic terrorism than I care to count. It has survived the divisions of the Vietnam War, talk radio, Fox News, and the sabotage of the economy for petty reasons.

It has survived Watergate, Zippergate, and multiple assassinations (don't get any ideas, though). It has survived the draft, the Patriot Act, the NDAA, Gitmo, and the TSA. It has survived the red and brown scares. It has survived Prohibition, legalized divorce, interracial marriage, interfaith marriage, and the War on Drugs. It has survived McCarthyism and the Monkey Trial. And it has survived the civil rights movement, the suffragette movement, the gay rights movement, and the so-called "Moral Majority".

Yet you guys are worried about one community organizer? Whose only "crime" is that he seems to genuinely care about everyone in America? And on top of that, it just seems to be because he's black, and his father was Arabic?
Are you serious?

America has already survived four years of Barack Obama, and will probably weather another four years just fine -- just because it's already survived MUCH worse. You don't have to agree with the guy, or like him personally, but if you honestly think that he's going to destroy the country, you REALLY need to see a psychiatrist -- and hey, it's more affordable now.

All sarcasm aside, the best advice I can give to the far-right is this: shut off the hateboxes, and step outside of your little corner of the country. See other points of view, and listen to the people around you, even if you'd otherwise disagree with them. Liberalism may not be the answer to all problems, but it's hardly the mental illness or capital crime that some of you think it is. At the very least, the more you learn to tolerate others' views, the better off you're going to be. Making the country -- or world -- a nicer place to live in, won't be easy work, but it's DEFINITELY something worth trying.

Do you have the nerve to?

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