Sour Grapes

Be careful what you wish for...


1. Change. Change is nice... if you save enough of it up, you can divide it up between the kids for a good time at Silver Dollar City. Change is not so fun, however, when you have to scrape it together to pay for gas for the next few days. Change is in the air, and unfortunately, it's giving off a rather foul odor. A radio commentator accidentally stated that "Obama is rewriting history!" How's that for a flub of the day.

2. Hope. Hope is nice... if there is a chance of it being realized. Hope is not so nice when it's all you've got. I had once hoped that I might make a few bucks, and could give back to others, in appreciation for their assistance in getting me here. I now hope I can make enough bucks to make up for the bigger chunk of change I'll be losing by making those few bucks.

3. A New America. That would be nice... if it means protecting my liberty and letting me enrich others with my own ambitious attempts to better my situation. It would not be so nice if means standing in line behind everyone else who is waiting for the next bread crust to be tossed his way.

Looking for the positives...

1. This is a corner-turning election. Obama inspired many people who have otherwise felt invisible in a political sense to become politically active. Blacks and minorities will hopefully see that we are not a latently racist people. Now, when a person is elected president despite his/her minority status, then we will have arrived somewhere great.

2. Kudos to California, Arizona, Arkansas, and (I think?) Florida for recognizing the importance of protecting the sanctity of families and the rights of children to be raised in a loving home with a father and a mother committed to each other.

3. Republicans can now soul-search for why they have strayed so far from those core principles that made us so strong and attractive. The other side doesn't have them. But because they cannot be found here, people will go to whomever promises them the moon. Get back to smaller government, fiscal responsibility, capitalism, and constitutional directive. Realize that your biases are what killed you. Who could have beat Obama on the economy? How about the guy that deals with economic issues for a living? Sounds great, except that he's a Mormon! He may be a Mormon, but it took morons to give him the boot.

The Great Tent Approach is fine, so long as those under the tent can agree to the core principles. Trying to redefine your party is fine, too. Just don't do it merely for the sake of prolonging the life of the party. I always get nervous when Republicans start talking about what we can do to attract more people. That usually means "what can we compromise in order to win?". If you are going to redefine the party, get back to those principles stated above. If they are true principles of good government, then people will see them, see that they work, and then want to associate. If you just look for what's going to attract the most people, you will be redefining continually ad nauseum, because people are fickle and lazy, and fickle and lazy people tend to drift with the wind of the day.