On election day we each made a gut check and took our best guess at what would be best for the next four years. We all have strong feelings about it because we all think that it is important. Now we must accept the result and make the best of it. We will never know if the country or the world would have been better or worse with President Kerry. That alternative universe is forever severed from the reality we live in. I would like to point out a few features of the reality that we do live in.
- We don’t live in red states. We don’t live in blue states. We live in the United States of America.
- Nobody answered the exit pollers by saying the most important issue to them was to make the country a worse place. We all voted with the best of intentions.
- Name calling will not make the country a better place to live. Nor will it change the results of the election. Nor will it even win you very many converts for the next election.
- While we are arguing with ourselves, people who hate the United States are laughing themselves silly over our bickering.
- There are still American men and women fighting and dieing in Iraq and other places around the world. Maybe they didn’t plan on ending up there, but they felt it was important to serve. Many of them serve so that we can have the privilege of having an election every four years. Let’s try to honor their sacrifice by treating the event with a little more respect.