Congratulations to President Elect Barack Obama,
I congratulate you on running a great campaign and I wish you all the
success that you can have in office. I hope that you will change our
government for the better of the people and I hope you will keep
integrity and passion at the forefront, as you have over the last year
in running for office.
To the voters who voted for Barack Obama, I challenge you to keep him on track. I challenge you to have the strength to disagree with him when you think he is wrong and to support him in times of tough decisions. I feel it is your responsibility to hold our new President accountable. I feel that you must now be as passionate as you were in electing him, as you may have to be in either agreeing or disagreeing with him. I want you to be objective and question all policies and do your research and make sure you know what is going to happen to our country. I want you to finally “let go” of President Bush and stop blaming and pointing fingers and start looking to the future and not the past. I want you to be gracious winners and appreciate our democratic process and not ridicule someone for voting for McCain. I want you to be excited for our future, but not afraid to know this is a long battle to get to where we need to go. I hope you understand that we have made history for the betterment of mankind, but we can also tear it apart if we follow blindly and silently. I wish all of you the dreams that you have been wishing for over the last year to come to fruition and that we, as a nation, can become a stronger union.
To the voters who voted for John McCain, I challenge you to move forward. I ask you to take as much time as you need to “mourn,” but then get off the ground and move forward. I want you to first of all give President Elect Obama all the respect that he deserves as the leader of our nation. Like him or not, he is “our” President and the leader of our nation. He deserves that respect, as did President Bush, even though many people did not give it to him. I ask you to challenge President Obama and his policies. I want you to be as passionate as you are for your views and to voice your opinion, but do it with taste and respect and well thought out fact and conviction. I want you to be a critic, a supporter, a challenger, and a voice. We, as a nation, will never fail if we are able to question our leaders and hold them accountable and make sure that our voice and opinions are heard. I know you feel pain, confusion, sadness, anger, and fear. I know you are uneasy and uncomfortable right now, I know you need comfort and something solid to focus onto. The only thing I can offer you is the nation itself, and the fact that we, all of us, are in the same boat and we must move forward.
To all of America, I challenge you to get educated on politics. I challenge you to get your news from reputable sources that report news and fact, and not their own agenda. CNN, Fox News, MSN, ABC, NBC and CBS are not reputable sources. They ALL have an agenda. Read the BBC or AP, or if you are going to watch TV, watch multiple channels to get both sides of the story. Don’t believe everything you see or hear on YouTube, CNN.com, Foxnews.com, or from so called journalists and news anchors who have now become paid political operatives, I want you to talk to people and find out what is really going on. I want you to have healthy political debates with friends from both sides of the aisle. If a conservative questions Obama, don’t go on the defensive, go on the offensive. I implore you to know the facts and to use them to your advantage. I expect you to debate civilly and with passion and not call people “stupid” or “ignorant” if they do not believe in your views. Our nation was founded on the idea that we all have a voice and a right to voice that opinion. We have a right to challenge our leaders and we are obligated to do so. We have the right to do this and not end up in a prison cell or stoned for having a different view.
We, as a nation, have made a huge step forward. I can only hope and pray that we as a nation can now take another step, and then another step, and another as we get back on the path that was laid down for us 232 years ago. God bless you all and God bless America…
Christopher Thaddeus Kappy
An American
