You know what bugs me? What really got my goat, grinded my gears, stuck in my craw, and jumped up my ass about this election?
Every time I would answer to someone at work (a gas station in a small Texas rural community) when they asked who I was voting for. The responses were never the same.
“Oh, god…”
“I guess you like paying high taxes, huh?”
“What, the muslim who hangs out with terrorists?”
etc.
The annoying part was not necessarily that they disagreed with me (I’m not a genius or anything, and have a lot of room to be wrong on a great many issues). It wasn’t that I felt like a lot of them were thinking with their baser instincts, ignoring facts for rhetoric by Right-Wing loudmouths. It wasn’t even that a vote for the other party would be a vote for someone (not John McCain, mind you) who basically stands for everything I hate about people- willful ignorance, mainly.
The annoying, overwhelming feeling I got was a sense of fatherly (or motherly) reproof. As if they would pat me on my head and say, “You poor lad. Bless your heart. Someone should’ve taught you better.”
I hate that attitude, as I’m sure all of you do. I’m no genius, but at a gas station in a small Texas rural community, I don’t think it would be out of line to say I might be one of the MORE intelligent people. I’ve lived in a few places, some not even here, and I’ve worked in many industries, doing many things. I’ve learned a lot in my short time on Earth. It would upset me that, because I supported another candidate, I was felt to be inferior, or mistaken, or at least ignorant of the real facts.
Wasn’t it funny how every time the opposition declared that Obama was fiercely liberal, or wanted to raise taxes, or redistribute wealth, some of us were like, “Those sound like good ideas!” Did you keep it to yourself sometimes? Did you sit in a room full of Republicans, your family, or coworkers, or close friends, and either remain silent or aquiesce to things you didn’t really agree with? I know I have.
Today, we got to share our voice with the world.
Today, our generation, one long labeled with “the myth of apathy” (God, I love Barack Obama), showed the cynical earlier generations that we DON’T just want to be lazy, take the easy road, make the easy decisions and leave the hard ones for actual adults.
Today, we stood up and said “This is MY country. This is OUR time. We DEMAND our voices to be heard.”
Today, we made a step towards showing the people who would pat our heads and say “We know better” that their time is over.
This country does not belong to those with wealth, or without it. This country belongs to each and every person who lives for it, fights for it, dies for it, and those people are everywhere, not just in small towns, or big cities, or across seas fighting for us.
Every voice matters. Remember, wherever you are, in every situation where you feel like it may be prudent to keep quiet, remember this night.
It’s going to be a strange tomorrow, at work. People will come in bitching, talking about how we are going to be a populist nation by February, how we will be supporting terrorists in the White House, how we will be paying 70% of our taxes to the government.
I can speak now. I can tell them, for instance, what my buddy Trey (and fellow gleeful Dem) told me tonight (which I’m sorta paraphrasing):
“You KNOW I don’t want to pay higher taxes. But if I can walk down the smoothly paved street and see a kid playing ball and know that he can go to a good school, get affordable healthcare, and not be sent off to fight in what seems to be an unwinnable war, then yeah, I’ll shell out an extra couple of hundred bucks a year.”
This is our time, people. Our generation is taking the reins. Let’s get to work.
