So I told the Duelist that I'd post a vitriolic blog post no matter who won the election, and even though I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this I feel like I should go ahead and post. However, in deference to friends like Phoebe and the DM, I think I'll tone down the vitriol.

First off, I might as well admit that I appreciate as much as the next metropolitan Californian Republican an election result which vindicates a lifetime of feeling vaguely persecuted for my voting record. But the truth is that I've only ever felt vaguely persecuted for my voting record, and I've felt much more seriously persecuted for other aspects of my individuality.

Mostly I intended to rant about the people who feel that the fate of the nation hangs on the presidency. I'll concede that it makes a difference, and it's even possible (though I consider it highly unlikely) that it will make a difference that actually affects my personal contentedness in any serious way. But I'd like to suggest a few things.

First, I'd like to suggest that we are Americans regardless of who our chief executive is. While I'm at it, I'd like to suggest that you can vote against somebody, but unless you're willing to renounce your citizenship rights, then you support the result regardless. Americans support the Constitution and the results it decrees whether we like those individual results or not. If the result matters so much to you that you feel you can no longer support the Constitution, well, time to fish or cut bait. Drink hemlock or get out of Athens. I submit to you that it matters that much to very few Americans, and I would appreciate it as a personal favor if nobody pretended that it did in my presence just so they could let off the steam because they became personally invested in the executive race.

Second, I'd like to suggest that the truly important things in life were not at issue here. God help us when the most important things on the American mind are foreign policy, taxes, jobs, abortion, and our precious civil liberties. Oh wait ... they already are. Well, God help America then. Love of one's neighbor, love of God ... those things are important. They certainly bear upon our foreign policy, our taxes, our jobs, our stance on abortion, and they probably imply certain civil liberties. But I'd like to suggest that neither God nor morality (if you're one of those people who think there's a difference) are for or against tax cuts. Reasonable minds can differ as to the best way to love our neighbors. I submit that a man's worth is not determined by his stance on abortion, whether he has a job, or whether his country's constitution enshrines a right to liberty. Do those things matter? Sure, of course they do. Maybe they're even important. But there are more important things in life that are beyond the reach of any election.

P.S. I am continuously bemused by the fact that the DM doesn't appear to consider me a mystic. I mean, I claim to speak in tongues, and when I say I believe in angels I don't mean it in some namby-pamby sort of subjective or metaphorical way. I mean it in the alien intelligence which can mess with your mind, and quite possibly with your brain, hardcore way. I believe that God tells me things, which probably though not necessarily also involves direct manipulation of my physiology. I don't know how much more mystic I can get, but somehow I don't seem to count. But that's probably a post for another time.

God help America. Last time I checked we didn't trust in the president, anyway.