Election Day

It is the day when we, the people, get to choose a group of folks who'll choose a new leader for us.

I hope y'all went to your polling places and voted. If you didn't, you really must stay just as silent over the next four years, because by failing to exercise your right you've forfeited bitching rights.

I really don't much care how you voted (as long as it was legally) because all the crap that has flowed the last few weeks about candidates who've allegedly done this'n'that really won't mean much in the coming four years. We'll all get some surprises, some more pleasant than others, and nobody will be more surprised than whoever it is ends up being called President - because that person will discover that nothing works as planned, that absolute power doesn't exist in our little corner of the world, and that maybe he'd've been better off losing.

Many of those of us who did vote will come to realize over the next four years the wisdom of the old Chinese philosopher's saying "Be careful what you wish for, lest it be granted..."

In another four years, we get to do it again - meanwhile, we live with the results of our wisdom because, as much as it irritated everyone who heard it, Dick Cheney had it right - we choose, then we live with the result until we get to choose again, for if we have any faith at all in our own judgment, we'll leave our chosen leaders alone to do what we elected them to do - and if they do it poorly, well, we only have to put up with it for four years, and if they do it well, we can get them to do it again for a while.

The Founding Fathers had more faith in leaders than we today seem to have - they built a system in which leaders are chosen, then left alone to lead for a set period of time. If we have faith in our leaders, we'll answer questions when they ask, and otherwise will trust them to do what is right, knowing that they have more and better resources than we do, believing that we have chosen well, and understanding that there will be times we will not like much of what it is that they do in our name(s) but knowing that they have knowledge that we do not and that it is we who have placed them in positions of power and authority. If they displease enough of us we'll fire them in four years and get someone else who we believe will be better at representing our desires and our best interests.

So if you haven't voted yet, get out there and exercise that right.

But if the result doesn't please you, there's no need to eat your liver over it, because in another four years we get to do it again and maybe in the intervening four years we'll learn a thing or two and make better choices. There's also a chance that the folks we're throwing out at that time have learned a thing or two.

Happy first Tuesday after the first Monday in November!