Solonor's Inkwell

And similar constitutional amendments and discriminatory laws in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming!

Sometimes it’s not worth the trouble to write down your own thoughts on a subject, when someone else has said exactly what you would have said anyway. So…

What he said!

I have started to write something several times since I first heard a local radio talk monster quoting an e-mail from one of his slobbering minions: “Watching the Obama victory last night was like re-living 9/11. I felt just like the passengers on that plane in Pennsylvania.”

Most of this stuff just bounces off, but (as my wife will atest) I thought my head was going to explode after hearing something that foul and disturbing (or what my friend Buzz calls “unbelievable, irresponsible and unforgivably unpatriotic”).

Yet, each time I have reached for my keyboard, I have been overcome by a sense of calm and certainty that we are at the beginning of something new and good. No, it’s not the end of racism or partisan politics. Florida (not alone among the states) is still filled with confused if not homophobic folk. Space aliens have not arrived to do our thinking for us. Evolution (if you believe in such things) has not rapidly accelerated our capacity for just getting along. But, for at least another couple of years, I can take pleasure in this fact:

Even if I ascribed to the ridiculous idea that every person who voted for John McCain were one of those who hate the American ideals of freedom, justice and equality as much as the woman who compared the election of her country’s President to a murderous attack by religious fanatics, they’re now officially and legally in the minority.

According to most of the McCain supporters I have spoken to, this is our last day of freedom on earth. Should the expected apocalypse of an Obama victory come to pass tomorrow, life as we know it will end.

Now, each of them has a slightly different take on what that doomsday scenario means. Some expect to wake up in Soviet America on Wednesday. Others will notice that what’s left of their bank accounts will be gone. Many will find their religious beliefs outlawed or that they are suddenly infected with the gay. And, of course, Osama bin Laden, Hezbollah, the PLO and the rest of the terrorist network will get the “all clear” from William Ayers that Secretary of State Jesse Jackson and Secretary of Defense Al Sharpton are ready to give them free access to bomb American cities.

So…what are you doing on your last full day of life in the U.S.A.?