The Election of Barack Obama and the Defeat of Racism

The “most important election in our lifetime”™ is over, but it was indeed historic. The people of the United States have elected their first “black” President. While I didn’t vote for Barack H. Obama myself, I can still celebrate the moment for another reason.

That distant pounding you hear is less Republicans banging their heads against the wall for almost completely squandering the last eight years than it is the triumphant sound of Americans collectively hammering the last nails into the coffin of “racism.” Oh, “racism” is not dead by any means, but we have succeeded in burying it alive. It’s best to ignore the whining and scratching you will hear from its grave, lest undue attention should let “racism” slip free again.

That said, I feel terribly bad for President Obama. Expectations of him are so high that he almost can’t fail to disappoint. I have little doubt that the Democrats will squander their time and burn their political capital as recklessly as the Republicans so recently did.

Supreme Court Rules on the Right to Arms

At long last, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment to the Constitution protects the individual right to keep and bear arms for self-defense and other lawful purposes, striking down the District of Columbia’s 30-year-old ban on private handguns. Unfortunately, the court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller was not the sweeping, revolutionary opinion that might have spared Americans from many more years of political theater and emotional litigation. Civil libertarians still face a long and torturous path to create a working freedom from the Constitutional right.

Indeed, the court was almost evenly split on the matter. In a disappointing display of intellectual dishonesty and contradictory reasoning, four justices dissented from the majority, favoring their personal opinions over nearly self-evident constitutional law. Tonight, however, the way is ever so much clearer, so I raise my glass in thanks to the five justices who finally ended 216 years of uncertainty.

Choosing a President

The election of 2008 will feature one of the most interesting Presidential contests in recent history. A white woman and a black man lead the Democratic field. Among the Republican candidates, there are an aristocrat, a fascist, an evangelical, a libertarian, and even one or two “conservatives.”

I will temporarily change my registration so that I can vote for Ron Paul in the Republican primary. Representative Paul is the only libertarian on the ballot from either of the two ruling parties, so I urge all freedom-loving citizens to do likewise. Even if he doesn’t win the nomination, we can show both parties that we value freedom and peace over militarism and “security.”