What a great voting day. Either way you vote in the presidential election, history will be made. Either a woman with be VP or a black man will be president. I am not black, but I recognize what this means. I really think people need to take the initiative and make something of themselves, not claim society held them down as a lame excuse. Obama will hopefully prove that people are beyond racism like we saw in the past. Our country is mostly beyond it and I do tire of hearing excuses. There are still idiots out there, like the skin head men who had planned to assassinate him. Extra diligence will be required to protect him since he is the first to break through this barrier, it will inevitably draw out the freaks and the racist weirdos.
Hopefully though, it will prove, once and for all, that a person of minority status can do whatever he wants to do if they have the backbone to do it. All through the primaries he has been referred to as black. If "black people" don't embrace him after his election like they did before it and ultimately begin to say, "well, he's only half black, so it doesn't count" at any point, I think I may vomit. It will prove that they want to forever exist in the screwed up victim mentality. I do, however, hope that his victory can heal our country and unite all races as has never been seen before. That all people will begin to view themselves as equal to another human being. What a great thing that will be for us all.
Politics at our house...and Ben
Tuesday Nov 4:
We had some friends, the Hyatts, move into the house next door to the school where we vote and the school district gave the kids the day off school. Ben begs to have playdates with the Hyatt boys, so I called up Jana and asked if we could come play on voting day and do a childcare swap while we went to vote. Turns out her husband took the day off work so she didn't need my help, but we went anyway and my kids had a ball playing in an outside fort in the backyard while I went to vote. I totally expected it to be a long process, especially when I showed up and the line was so long it was out the door into the crisp fall weather. To my surprise, the line just whipped right along and I was in and out in under 10 minutes. It did help that we only had 4 things to vote on.
When I came back to the Hyatts, Ben was surprised that I was so fast. He asked who I wrote down that I wanted to be the boss of the Estados Unidos. I told him I voted for John McCain. He looked sad. I asked him who he would have voted for, in his totally well informed four year old logical mind. He said he would vote for Bumack Uhbahma. He just likes the way his name sounds. He asked why I chose John McCain. In my poor attempt to explain politics to a four year old, I explained two quick issues...taxes and abortion.
Abortion - When a mommy has a baby in her tummy like I do right now, John McCain thinks the mommy should keep the baby inside until it's ready to come out. Then if the mommy chooses she doesn't want to be a mommy, she can give the baby to a family that wants to have a baby. Barack Obama thinks it is okay to let the baby die inside the mommy if the mommy doesn't want to keep the baby. No problem. Made sense to him, though he was a little disturbed that someone would let a baby die.
Taxes - Some people work really hard at their jobs to get money to buy their groceries, pay for their house, buy toys and treats and things like that. Some people are lazy and don't want to work. John McCain will let us keep more of our money in our family. Barack Obama wants to take too much of our money and give it to people that don't want to work. Seemed fair and logical to Ben as well. I don't really know that McCain's tax plan would lower my taxes, but I'd more closely approve of how it was spent...if you can really approve of how they spend our money...hello ba-jillion dollars in debt!!
Wednesday Nov 5:
Ben wakes up and we tell him that Barack Obama won and he gets to be the boss of the United States. He seems pleased. Later, at lunch, Ben appears really disturbed by something. Finally, he asks me, "Mom, why didn't Barack Obama come and take all our money away yet?" Okay, not at all what I had explained to him. Poor kid thought Barack was going to come knock on our door and take all our money. We had a talk about how it wouldn't happen exactly like that. It would be more like he send a bill to our house and we pay the money that way. Plus, I explained that we do believe in helping people that are having a hard time and that even if John McCain had won, we would have paid some of our money, just not as much to the lazy people. Ugh. It's hard to simplify issues to such a ridiculous extent.
Thursday Nov 6:
Ben asks what Barack Obama is doing since he's in charge now. I explain that he got the new job, but it will take a little while for him to be ready to go to work. We looked at the map and I showed him that he lives in a different state right now and he has kids and they have a house so they have to take a few days and pack their house and maybe sell it our rent it like we do with our house in Houston, then he'll have to find a new school for his kids to go to here in Washington, DC, etc, etc. Barack Obama will come be the boss after Christmas.
We'll see what tomorrow brings as far as questions...
