I'm not sure if anyone was aware but there was a national election on Tuesday. Yesterday, I finished deleting the last of the many election related voice mails and am now looking forward to the removal of the billions of election related signs plopped in every nook and cranny up and down the street. I am not disappointed in the results of this election as I like the idea that there is some check and balance in Washington. It is not my intention to start a political discussion about who is more patriotic, who cares more about the people, who caused the current recession, or who is responsible for the atrocious deficits. Yesterday, I logged onto to Facebook and noticed that one of my friends had changed his status to ""my friends name" believes that Republicans love America...they love it like the mother who loves her baby so much she drowns it in the bathtub to save it." My friend is a progressive. I chose not to comment as political discussions of any sort on his FB page usually leads to me being bombasted up side and down by some of his progressive friends as I found out when one told me to die and get off the health care roll during the health care reform debates. But his status bothers me as a similar status saying the same thing about Democrats would bother me on a Republican friends site. I am a mutt politically. I am red on fiscal issues. I am blue on some social issues. And I am purple on a lot of issues I don't particularly care about. In America, there are 307 million people. To suggest that there are only two points of view, Democrat and Republican, is ludicrous. Every person has a unique situation and a unique point of view and our founding fathers knew this when they drafted the Constitution of the United States. They knew that 500 representatives with 500 different ideas would come to the table and write legislation but they wanted a 2/3 majority so that those 500 points of view could write legislation based on what they could agree on. The party out of power is not an enemy. The people that choose this party to represent them is not the enemy. We are all Americans. We all need our voices heard. We all care about people, our country and our country's future. We disagree on whether people are better off with big government or small government. We disagree on whether more taxes or less taxes, more tariffs or less tariffs, protectionism or free trade, or whether or not it is Governments responsibility to take care of our neighbor or each individuals responsibility to care for our neighbor, is the better course of action and is best for our country. But to paint each individual member of the other party with the same brush, is hugely short sighted. I don't base friendships on political affiliation. I have friends of all viewpoints, Communist included. But though I may disagree vehemently with what they feel is best for America and would fight against their point of view in the voting booth, I do not consider them the "enemy". Last night, as I was flipping through channels, I landed on Stossel who was having a discussion with a Conservative and a Liberal at a table and DEBATING the issues, not calling their opposing viewpoints stupid, Un-American, or traitorous. If anything, it is this we should be celebrating here. Our country did not like the policies, the unemployment rate, the bailout, healthcare reform, whatever the pet issue and the people took it in their hands to change it, to restore some balance, whatever the mind of the voters was. This process does not happen in Cuba. It does not happen in Venezuela. It does not happen in many Middle Eastern countries and even in some Western ones but we Americans, all of us, are empowered with this phenomenal right to send to Washington by a simple majority, those we feel best speak our voice but once in Washington, they are bound by a super majority to ensure that the legislation reflects where we can agree. I am not my friends "enemy" and I do not care any less about my country than he does. Neither are those that were elected to serve, who put their personal lives out there for scrutiny, campaigned hard, and sacrificed privacy and family time to represent our interests. We Americans...should be proud of who we are, what our country is, and all the blessings that come from living here. There is NO OTHER place like the US in the world. We are unique. We have individual rights and we care about each other and should celebrate what unites us, not what divides us.
God bless the USA and prayers for all those who serve us in Washington..

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