Allow me to say thanks

The election is over.

I don't think I'm the only one saying thank goodness.

No more political ads, no more stories about how much better/worse we'd be with candidate a/b, no more endorsements, and no more fliers in my mailbox telling me to vote Republican.

Am I an Obama supporter?  Yes.

Now some will read that and tell me how much they like the guy, how he deserves four more years, how things are on the upswing, or how he was the lesser of two evils.  Others will start ranting about how people are uneducated, how things are going to completely fall apart, and how much of a hole he's going to continue to put the country in.

Some have insinuated that the country will become similar to a third world country, asking how they're going to survive the next four years.

Some have gone out and said that everyone can now quit their jobs and get free handouts for the government, nevermind that it's not as simple as that.

In short, some are acting as if problems never existed before the current President took office, that he created all the current issues, and will only make them worse now that he's earned four more years in office.  They say that Mitt Romney was the best way to fix things in this country and we're doomed going forward.

Are we really that senseless?  Does anyone really have any solid evidence that Obama is going to make things much worse or better than they already are?  Are people that sore of losers that because their guy didn't get elected, they're going to predict doom and gloom rather than do their part to make sure this great country continues to thrive?
I hear a lot of people talk about patriotism, but how patriotic can you be if you refuse to stand by the person elected into office?  How patriotic are you if you put your own discontent ahead of the good of the country?  The one thing this election reminded me of is how split people really are and how bitter some can be when the person the voted for doesn't make it.

After learning about what the great John Wayne once said, I find it amazing that in 40-50 years we've gone from a country who stands behind its leader to bickering back and forth about the person's merits more than anything else.  For those wondering, Wayne essentially stated that while he didn't vote for John F. Kennedy, this was his country and therefore that was his President and he'd stand behind him.

Now we try to get rid of anything we don't like, no matter what his record says.

Now we go around citing facts, justifying our preaching by saying we are "educating" people.  We put down those we don't believe in, trump up the person we want elected, and spew facts left and right until we're blue in the face.

I've seen more posts this year talking about "educating" people than in all previous years combined.  Just who are you educating?  The people who truly don't know who to stand behind?  In that case, give them what you believe and let them judge for themselves.  Or are you just trying to change the minds of those who don't believe the same things you believe in?  In that case, give it a rest.

Just like with religion, I don't like people coming to me telling me how I'm wrong in what I believe.  In the case of the election, I did not trust Mittens one bit.  Everything I heard from him, everything I saw him propose scared me.  Obama didn't exactly make me feel a ton better, but I had seen enough improvement in the economy, enough good ideas to think that four more years wouldn't hurt.

That's my opinion.  It's not fact.  He could, in fact, burn the whole country down with bad ideas, flawed execution, and overspending.  But he may do the opposite.

Hell, I could've been wrong about Mittens.  Maybe he wins and everything turns around completely.  Jobs continue to show growth, housing situations improve, the economy grows, and everyone lives happily ever after.  I don't know for sure though, and neither do you.  Instead, we're left to make a vote based upon what we believe based upon what we've seen.

Your opinion is likely going to be different from mine just because we're different people.  No one thinks exactly the same.  Trying to convince me that my opinion is wrong is the worst way you could go about things though.  Telling me "facts" to try and sway my opinion is a bad idea.

You want to debate?  Let's debate.  But posting on facebook and twitter how dumb people are for not agreeing with you and talking as if the end of the world is upon us isn't the best course of action either.  But that's an opinion.  It's not up me how you and everyone else reacts to the election.

In the end, it comes down to respect.  Do you have respect for other people and what they decide?  If you do, why are you blasting people for voting differently?  Why are you mocking the people who voted differently?  I know I wouldn't be happy if Mittens had won, but whining and complaining about it isn't going to get him removed from office, nor is it going to change the outcome of the election.

I'm not going to get into the facts of the election because in politics, there are no facts, just numbers spun in different ways to make one guy seem better than the other.  Both parties do it, both parties try to lift themselves on to a pedestal to sound better than the other, and both parties will try to make the other sound like the most evil thing in the history of mankind.

The one thing I'll say is that Mittens only has himself to blame for this.  He may not have meant to blurt about the 47%, but it definitely came back to bite him in the butt.  Now I don't think that should've been the main reason people voted against him, but pissing off a portion of the population isn't going to win you many popularity contests.  In the end, he said more than a few things that turned people away from him, valuable votes that could've swung the election in his favor.

Is Obama the cure-all?  No.  No single person is.  It takes people working together, something that doesn't happen in a governmental setting.  Those bitter about the Romney loss should take comfort that Obama still has a Republican-controlled Congress sitting in front of him, likely to make his passage of anything more difficult than it needs to be.  He isn't going to get any love from a lot of Republicans right away, as many will still be bitter over the Romney loss.

What this country needs is a wake-up call.  9/11 was supposed to be that, but the unity showed in the months after that event has long disappeared, replaced with renewed venom between the parties and the people who are represented by those parties.  I think most would agree that there is far too much bickering in Washington, that instead of working to get things fixed, they spend time arguing about why their way is better than someone else's.

So I want to say thanks to the people who tried to push their beliefs on other people.  Thanks to the politicians who make up lie after lie to get in office, then spend their terms doing the opposite of what they said they'd do.

Without you, people who were undecided wouldn't know who to vote for, and in many cases, the venom was what turned people to vote for the person the venom was supposed to help.  In the case of Romney, his 47% rant, his ideas on abortion and women in general, helped steer many people towards Obama.  Some went the other way, deciding that four more years was akin to a disaster waiting to happen.

Either way, thanks for clearing the minds of the undecided.

For the record, I've always been partial to the democratic side of things, but I've always believed the right person for the job transcended party lines, meaning if a Republican was a better choice, that's who I'd go for.  I've also never believed that I should go and tell people who to vote for.  I allow people to make up their own minds.  The information is out there, but it isn't up to me to educate others on what to do.

In the end, only time will tell what Obama's legacy will be.  Some have already decided what they think it will be and nothing will change that, which is unfortunate.  That's the society we live in now though and there isn't anything that can change that at this point.

I look forward to seeing what happens next and hope that some of you soften your stances going forward.  This country needs to be together if it's going to continue to be the great country that we've known it to be.

I don't see that happening though.

The election is over, but the fight has probably only just begun sadly.