My feelings after the election...

Congratulations to President-Elect Obama... I do not agree with a lot of his policies and beliefs, but, as an American, I will support him as president, until he does something to take away my freedoms given to me by our founding fathers. I'm not too worried (at least at this point) about him following through with any of his campaign promises, mainly because, when was the last time any elected official followed through with one of their campaign promises...

I am not racist, so please don't assume that I am. What I am is very blunt and honest, and I have a tendancy to speak my mind (as if you haven't figured that out yet reading past blog entries). However much I acknowledge the importance of this historic election, I am tired of hearing the phrase "the first black president." I feel that the concept of race is being perpetuated by those who believe they need to qualify everything by adding labels to everything. I don't go around with the title "European-American" (because my ancestors came from Europe), so why do we still need the title "African-American?" Why can't we just be AMERICAN'S? We were born here... We live here... It makes sense to me.

On another note, unrelated to the election, but along the same vein, I am also tired of special observance months based on race. But by saying that, I know I'm inviting the hate mail of people who think I am a racist. If there can be a black history month and a latin-america history month, where is my caucasion history month? I want a month to celebrate my heritage. It's discrimination, it what it is...

I love our country. I love the freedoms that we have here. That we can vote for who we believe will represent us and our beliefs. That being said, I just have to mention a question I had earlier this evening... When the voter statistics came out on NBC, they said that 95% of the African-American vote went for Obama... Not entirely surprising, but my question is this... Did they vote for him because they believe in his ideals and values? Or did they vote for him because they wanted to see a "black man in the white house?" Either way, it is their freedom that gives them that choice, but I hope that the reason is the former and not the latter. I mean... If I voted for McCain just because he's white, or just because his running mate is a woman, I would be labeled as racist or feminist (of which I am neither).

I will close on a note to ALL ELECTED OFFICIALS: We the people "hired" you to do the job that you are or have been doing... We are equal opportunity employers... We can fire you at any time if we feel that you are not doing a good job. (If you can't tell, I'm tired of the incumbents thinking that they are the only ones who can get the job done, when they haven't been doing a good job for a while... Sometimes, you need to replace the staff to get a new perspective on things and get some new ideas flowing... "Vote for me because I've been here for years!" blech...)

On another note, I would like to thank the Democrats running in the State of Alaska for US Senate and the House of Representatives, Mark Begich and Ethan Berkowitz. Thank you both for running clean campaigns. I know the Democratic party ran ads against the incumbents, Don Young and Ted Stevens, but every advertisement I saw that was approved by you, was free of finger pointing and the blame game. It was quite refreshing to see a person running for office state what their vision for the future is, and not lay out all the bad things that the incumbent has done in the past. If only the national campaigns were run like yours, I might have had an easier time picking the lesser of two evils... (For all those not following the polls in Alaska, at the time of this writing, both challengers were behind the incumbents, which is sad, because it means that the majority of Alaskans feel the need to keep criminals in office - oh did I say that out loud?)