Thursday, November 15, 2012

Post Election Hangover: The Week After

Well, it's been a little over a week since the Electoral College took a look at our votes and decided which guy would ultimately take the helm of Supreme Ruler of America.  Many people have felt that the Electoral College chose the wrong guy.  Many people believe in voter fraud.  Many people thought the count was wrong.  Worst of all?  Many people thought that this was the beginning of the apocalypse, armageddon, the holocaust, and ground zero for a massive zombie outbreak all rolled into one. 

Now before you hit the little 'x' in the upper right hand corner hear me out.  I'm not criticizing people who voted Romney.  I'm really not.  What I am criticizing is narrow-mindedness and complete apocalyptical thinking.  Neither Romney nor Obama were or are the saviors of America.  They are simply men who raised enough money to buy votes and support from the correct special interest groups, lobbyists, and corporations who will then turn around and be controlled by these same groups.  That's all.  So please don't be sad that Romney didn't get in, he wasn't going to save you just like Obama isn't either.  Don't gloat in Obama's victory, it doesn't mean anything just as if Romney would've gotten in.

This has not happened...yet
I've waited a week to write this because I was wanting to make sure that the "doom and gloom" crowd weren't correct in predicting the end of civilization.  I woke on the morning after the election and peeked outside my window to make sure that zombies weren't dragging my neighbors out of their homes, that cars weren't spontaneously combusting, that there weren't any massive dumpster fires, and that there wasn't any rioting in the streets before I got out of bed.  And you know what?  I couldn't tell a difference between Tuesday morning when I woke up and that Wednesday.  Hell, each day I've been waiting for lizard-people to come around with sub-atomic brain suction lasers to suction my thoughts and soul out of my body.  Alas, it has not happened.  When I get in my car each morning I wince at the thought that when I turn the key, I might be instantly vaporized.  I'm timid when I pull into the parking lot at school, thinking that all of these students might actually be zombies ready to eat my face. But nope, nothing has changed.  I think and ponder all this because on that Wednesday I went to Facebook and saw all the foretelling of the collapse of society as we know it being spewed out by many people who were sad.

Sure, there were certainly some entertaining posts that weren't actually meant for entertainment (I think), but most of them were so out there that one would easily conclude that the apocalpse was starting in the next 5 minutes.  I saw, "America is dead", "God will punish America", and "I'm moving to Mexico/Canada", just to name a few.  Now if you took a time traveler from the 1800's who landed in 2012 and told them to read all of these posts, he would start to quiver in his boots and faint from sheer terror.  People were blowing this whole thing way out of proportion.  I was actually ashamed to know some of these people.  I couldn't believe that anyone could type or say those things and actually be serious.  I decided to engage one of the more extreme people to try to get an idea of what he was thinking.  He had combined all three of the previous examples into one single post and then some (he added that Obama was an evil Muslim that hated America and Israel).  I told him the short version of what I'm saying here now, but it fell on deaf ears. 

Drug Cartel's favorite activity for white people
My favorites have been the posts about moving to Mexico or Canada.  Yeah, that will fix your problems.  Mexico's notorious drug cartels just love white people.  Let me rephrase that, they love the severed heads of white people who got too close to their operation.  Canada is pretty cool but then you have the healthcare thing that so many are bitching about now.  Got a cold?  Get in line, it might take a month or two. 

See?  That's not Obama.
If you find that you are one of these people that said all of these things, don't think that I hate you or wish ill-will towards you.  Quite the contrary, I care about you and I want you to be smarter than what you are showing.  Every president that has come along throughout history has had their naysayers.  People have always prophetized the end of the world when he get a president.  They are always the "Antichrist" in someone's eyes.  But look, we haven't blown our selves up, the zombies haven't risen, society hasn't collapsed, and you are probably doing the same thing today as you were the same time last week.  Electing a president does not make for great changes, the people of America are the ones who change it.  We need to look past these silly party lines that we've drawn up and step over them and help each other out.  Positive change will only happen when we decide to make it happen.  So stick around gloom-and-doomers, greatness could be just around the corner.