Really.
Disregarding my sore winner anonymous trolls, many friends of mine no doubt voted for Barack Obama, and I think it's crazy to let something like that affect a friendship. I don't understand the thinking that if someone disagrees with you politically, you must be excommunicated. I lost a friend from high school, because she decided I was evil because I thought that Saddam Hussein should be removed from power in 2002.
We do have to work together to make the new administration successful, but we may just not agree on what constitutes success.
Sure, they're nice & pleasant now. Where were the nice & pleasant Dems during the last eight years? If they existed they didn't make much noise in my presence. Do they expect us to be civil and "work together" under Obama, or should we be "just as easy to work with as you guys were under Bush."
When John Conyers and the other Congressional Dems who seek revenge start their show trials of Bush administration officials, will you to be out front to lead us in the Rodney King Chorus, "Can't we all just get along?"
How many of those cheerful, well-scrubbed advocates of unity were posting photos apologizing to the rest of the world for reelecting Bush in '04?
I get the feeling they are saying you 48% are the adults and need to act like grown ups now since we, the 52%, have been bratty little snots the last 8 years. Oh yeah, give us all your money too. And may I have the car?
Neither, Brock. This is falling into the immaturity trap of the other side, wherein the ideal republic is some kind of Care Bears happy happy family, with everyone all emotionally tight with each other.
Feh. Let's grow up. I see nothing wrong with vigorous cross-currents of debate, with the clash of strongly-held views. This isn't a kindergarten classroom, with teacher exhorting us all to be be nice and think what others feel. This is governing a republic that includes chunks of people we have no wish or need to call friend, but who fall short of that level of evil that we need to expel or kill them.
So. There's no need to be nice, to be accomodating, to go along to get along. But there's equally no sense in being mean, being obstructive to no purpose, in promoting chaos for the mere sake of sabotaging the success of the others.
When the new Obama Administration is sensible, agree and shut up. When they're assholes, stand up and say so, loudly. You don't owe them generic praise or emotional "support." This whole idea of "my President" turns my stomach. I use phrases like that to refer to my father, my mother, my wife, my child. But I would no more speak of "my President" than I would of "my CEO" for whomever runs the company for which I work. He's just a man, an executive, an employee. Whatever loyalty one feels to the country is properly directed at your fellow citizens, not the single guy who happens to be running the Executive Branch. That's what you do in a l'etat c'est moi absolute monarchy. You abase yourself before the wonderful, wonderful king, and all that's good about the country flows from His mighty mind and arm. We're Americans, for God's sake. We don't think much of kings, princes, Caesars, aristocrats. We may love America but the President of America is just a guy, whom we may or may not even like.
If a friend of mine had told me to my face that she thought I was an evil racist Nazi babykiller racist fascist warmongering Jesusfreak racist because I was planning to vote for McCain, and then came up to me later saying, "OK, now that your candidate lost, let's make up and be friends!" you can bet I'd be rather cool to the idea of shaking hands and making up. Maybe if she said she was sorry for calling me names, and if I could be sure she meant it...
That's the problem I have with that website. No doubt most of the people are sincere and weren't the ones doing the name-calling. However, how can I be sure? In this case I'm the wronged one, and it's going to take more than easy gestures.