Gay Conservative

This Tuesday, Barack Hussein Obama will be inaugurated as America’s 44th President. He will be the first black man ever to hold the office. In the run-up to inauguration day, people all over the country have begun to cash in on Obama’s popularity. I saw an American flag with Obama’s mug on it the other day; this is extremely disrespectful and against the rules of the US Flag Code. To me, seeing that was as sickening as watching the Phelpsians kick my flag around at anti-military and anti-gay protests.

I love my country. Despite the fact that I strongly disagree with a great many people in it, I love my country and all it stands for. The election of Barack Obama has proven that the democratic process still works. Yes, even though I dislike the man I can say that he won the election fairly. But there are a lot of things that I’m not okay with, things that I would like to see American liberals address.

Such as inauguration fever. In 2004, when Bush was re-elected and we got ready for the inauguration party, liberals screamed that he was reportedly spending around $45 million on the inauguration ceremony and party. We’re at war, they argued, why is he spending so much? Obama has already spent $150 million on HIS inauguration and party, and nobody has made a peep about it. Three times as much as Bush in 2004–in the middle of a freakin’ recession, far worse economic times than in 2004–and nobody has a problem with this. Do you know what we could do with $150 million?

The droves that are supporting Obama are digging at the detractors, asking, “why can’t we just get along?” Where the hell was this sentiment when Bush was elected? You wore shirts that said, “killing 100 is terrorism, killing 50,000 is foreign policy” (a blatant lie, we never killed that many in Iraq–that was the insurgency’s fault) and put bumper stickers on your cars that said, “he’s not MY President.” You were completely unwilling to accept him and at times demanded that he be impeached for war crimes, an outrageous claim if ever there was one. Yet you want us to accept YOUR man, a guy who has admitted openly to socialist politics that could be just as bad for America as Bush’s failed economic policies. You want us to do what you absolutely refused to do.

We didn’t scream “stop the hate” when you dogged Bush. We didn’t call you names when you protested the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (calling your patriotism into question doesn’t count, kids). But somehow I’m a racist for believing we could do better than Barack Obama? You’re a hoot.

We are one. I’m not being sarcastic there, I mean that. WE ARE ONE. We are one nation, under God. We’re America. Even when we disagree, our Constitution and our law still holds true. I pitched my little fit after the election and got it out of my system. Now I wanna see what Obama is really going to do. During the campaigns, Obama promised a lot of things–chief among them ending the war in Iraq, closing Guantanamo Bay, and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. Now he’s singing a different tune on a lot of the things he promised. He has admitted that it would be dangerous to simply close Gitmo and send the bad guys home; he’s not going to keep that promise. He’s admitted that Iraq cannot end overnight, and the troops won’t all be coming home on January 21. He has changed his tune on taxes, admitting that raising anyone’s taxes–even on the rich–during a recession could send us into a full-blown economic depression.

When I see things like this going on, I have hope that he won’t be as bad as I thought he’d be. Yet when I see massive crowds of people hailing Obama and practically treating him as the Second Coming of Christ, I have to wonder what’s next. I think we’ll survive; we’re America, we always do. But even James Madison said that it is the nature of a Democracy to eventually murder itself. What kind of place are we leaving to my nieces and nephews? Will they inherit a bigger mess? Will they look back on all of this and wonder why we didn’t do more to avoid what’s going on? I hope not. I sincerely do. I hope Obama proves us wrong and does better than he’s said so far.

Either way, we’ll still be America. I can at least have hope for that.