The People Have Spoken

The people have spoken and this time there is no doubt what was spoken, unlike in 2000. I felt the wrong decision was made then, but eventually I had to accept it, even through my disagreement and distrust. I’m thrilled to live in a country that gives us the freedom to speak up and out and vote our opinions. I just hope that every person who implied I was unpatriotic to criticize President Bush will reconsider that position when they desire to criticize President Obama. Will they refrain from respect to their stated position that it is unpatriotic to criticize the President? Will they be hypocrits who think that supporting only their desired candidate is patriotic? As if somehow a non-Republican is a non-American. Or, will they possibly consider that it might actually be every citizen’s patriotic duty to pinpoint what they see as wrong, even if it is the President, possibly especially the President, now that it’s not the President they wanted. My hope is that we all see that our duty as citizens is not to blindly support our candidate but to think for ourselves and call out what is good and what is bad in turn, without fear of being thrown in jail or being ostracized as a traitor. Blind obedience is ignorance and ignorance is curable. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if Toby Keith were to make negative, denigrating, anti-Obama comments in another country, after Obama is sworn in as President of the United States. Would his fans and “community” see him as a traitor and un-American a la the Dixie Chicks, or would they cheer him on for speaking aloud to the world the same things that they are thinking? Personally my opinion of The Dixie Chicks went way up for speaking their opinions at a time when the political atmosphere called disagreement unpatriotic. Calling disagreement unpatriotic sounds like fascism to me. Last I checked, the United States was still supposed to be a democracy.