I thought I'd said all there was to say, and then I caught this post on a forum I frequent:

[Another user] implies that you have to vote for Obama to have a change in administration, and I pointed out the administration is going to change no matter who you vote for.

I started writing a response...and I couldn't stop.  So here's the response, as my last argument in favor of Barack Obama for President of the United States.

Personally, I'm not sure if I see changing from a black suit and black tie 2 inches wide to a different brand of black suit and black tie two inches wide as quite...emphatic enough a change for me this time around, but to each their own.

For me - as many folks including have pointed out over the course of this election - one man in the white house can't make THAT big a difference. 

Not by himself. 

George Bush isn't entirely to blame for the state of the economy, and Barack Obama can't fix it alone. 

I tend to feel that the current situation is a failure of not only Bush and his inner circle, but of the socially fundamentalist, fiscally radical charade called "neo-conservatism" that the Republican Party has become, and of all that has gone along with it not just for the last eight years, but for at least the last twenty-four, and that includes a few bone-headed decisions made in the Clinton administration.

I won't lie, I voted for Clinton twice.  But the Obama candidacy has really driven home to me just how far our country must have fallen for someone like Bill Clinton to look like a good candidate in the first place.

Because the problems in this country aren't just Republican problems, they're all of us problems.  Problems that I have, just as surely as my opposite numbers on the conservative end of the spectrum do.

I'm tired of being told I'm a traitor if I question the leadership of this country.

I'm tired of being told I'm unpatriotic if I refuse to support a war that I don't believe was justified. 

I'm tired of the broken logic and anti-intellectualism that has become so deeply embedded in our discourse. 

I'm tired of being told I'm less than honorable because when I decided what God I believe in, I picked "I don't know." 

I'm tired of being told that I'm a freeloader for wanting the support of my country in exchange for the taxes I pay. 

I'm tired of white people, who think I am white too, making n*gger jokes in my presence because they think I'm one of them, and I'm tired of black people calling each other by that hateful, disgusting term, and I'm tired of white people treating me like I'm not "one of them" because I'm somehow not..quite...white, and I'm tired of black people treading me like I'm not one of them because I'm certainly not black by appearance.

I'm tired of divisiveness and hate. 

I'm tired of fear and fearmongering. 

I'm tired of the glorification of some hate-filled idiot who preaches to the radio world that 'putting a boot in someone's ass' is 'the American Way.' 

I'm tired of the jingoism, the strife, the hate, the bleeding, the suffering, the us vs. them, the 'not like us,' the 'other guys' mentality.  I'm tired of people who act like raving idiots acting as though someone else is the raving idiot when their raving idiocy is pointed out.  I'm tired of head games and one-upsmanship; I'm tired of keeping up with the Joneses and I'm tired of not being able to keep up with them.

I'm tired of the dishonesty of people who can recite every word of Revelations by heart but still pretend to fall for the 'Obama is the Anti-Christ because Revelations says the anti-christ will be a Muslim' nonsense when they know damn well that Islam wasn't even founded until five-six hundred years after Revelations was written.If you're going to be an ignorant bigot, don't compound your sin by lying to yourself or anyone else about it.   Be an open, vocal bigot, and maybe you and the rest of the open, vocal bigots can get together, you can all head off to a 'bigots only' island somewhere, and kill each other off one by one until there's only one of you left, while those of us who at least make the effort to break out of that xenophobia can stay behind and do our best to migrate from good intentions to genuine integration.

I'm tired of 'Swift Boat Veterans For Truth' and I'm tired of 'Willie Horton' and I'm tired of 'the terrorists.' 

I'm tired of the broken logic that celebrates the sanctity of life and does nothing to uphold or guarantee the dignity and quality of that life, or the lives that created it. 

I'm tired of people hating for God and killing for Allah. 

I'm tired of people who are divorced claiming to defend the 'institution of marriage' by forbidding it to loving couples just because those couples happen to be of the same gender.

I'm tired of people who hold the rights of animals higher than the rights of humans.

I'm tired of people who think more about the rights of criminals than the rights of victims.

I'm tired of a world where the most powerful leader on the planet can deliberately encourage a lie - that Iraq was responsible for or conected to 9-11 - get caught doing it, and then claim he didn't do it and get re-elected.

I'm tired, tired, tired, of the stupid, backwards way that we think. 

I'm tired of it.

And *throughout my life*, all of these things have been consistently and constantly promoted by the right side of the political spectrum. 

I don't deny that the left does it too - I don't even deny that *I* do it - but that doesn't make me any less sick of it, and as Obama has so eloquently noted in his stump speeches, it is time to cast aside the politics of hate and fear and move forward into a politics of progress, unity, and common good.

John McCain doesn't offer a damned bit of progress, unity, or common good, and he never has, even when I found him a reasonably attractive political candidate back in 1999.  And frankly, neither has any other presidential candidate in my lifetime.

It's not just time for the government to change.  It's not just time for the economy or our foreign policy or our energy policy or our education and health care systems to change.  It's time for US to change, for the better.  It's time for those who would claim the US is a 'Christian Nation' to start acting like Christians - in charity and forgiveness and understanding and love - instead of like spiteful, hateful, self-righteous demagogues...and it's time for those who make no such claim to do the same thing.

It's time we stopped paying lip service to health care, education, the environment, foreign policy, democracy, civil liberties, fair government, and equality of opportunity, and started making it a reality.

We have had two hundred and thirty two years in this great nation to make promises and pay lip service. 

We know, in our hearts, that it's wrong to hate other people for their religion, sexuality, or the color of their skin...but we do it anyway. 

We know, in our hearts, that not ONE of us, no matter what God we believe in, wants us to take another human life in defense of that belief...but we do it anyway. 

We know, in our hearts, that teaching our children what sex is, how babies happen, and making sure that they are protected and informed is the best way to rid ourselves of the plague of abortion, no matter how much we would like to wish that human beings lacked genitals until they turn eighteen and no matter how fervently we try to convince ourselves that it's someone else's kid having sex tonight...but we refuse to talk to them about it because it's not comfortable, and we refuse to allow our teachers to talk to them about it because we're not comfortable with that either.  

We know, in our hearts, that great goodness can come from things like stem cell research and the space program...but we refuse to fund them out of selfishness or an unjustifiable appeal to 'morality' and 'the will of God.'

We know, in our hearts, that some human beings are simply broken, and that we as a society have no moral imperative to feed, clothe, and house such people when they are responsible for their actions and choose to take another human life; these human beings have chosen to take away the rights of another human being, and we know that in a just society that means they have forfeited their rights.

We know, in our hearts, that the death penalty as it stands in this country can not stand because it is flawed; that the entire system needs to be retooled from the ground up to make it fair and infallible in capital cases.  It can be done...but we don't want to go through the trouble.

We know, in our hearts, that we should go through the trouble.

We know, in our hearts, that while a person deserves to keep what they earn, no person earns alone; in earning, they take advantage of publicly funded institutions ranging from the medical science that brings them in to the world, to the roads and airplanes they move through that world in, to the technology that preserves their image and sound and life even after that life has ended.

We know, in our hearts, that if we can afford a three thousand square foot home and an air-conditioned SUV that gets 10 miles to the gallon for trips to the grocery store, we can afford to dig a little deeper to help those who, for whatever reason, can't dig any deeper.

We know, in our hearts, that some people legitimately choose to take advantage of the social welfare system because they simply don't want to get off their asses and work.

We know, in our hearts, that sometimes it's more important for our children to learn and perform well in school than to simply feel good about themselves because we want them to feel good about themselves; we know, in our hearts, that everyone deserves to like themselves, but that pride and self-esteem are a fraud if they aren't earned. 

We know, in our hearts, that we should be working for the money we earned, and we know that most of us usually do, and all of us sometimes don't.

We know, in our hearts, that there are a lot of opportunities every day to do the right thing and the wrong thing, whether that's to disapprove of a racist joke in closed company, to stand firm against expressions of bigotry and hate, to offer a dollar or a hand or an ear to someone that needs it - even a stranger.

And we know, each of us, in our hearts, that all the crimes and transgressions, all the heroisms and triumphs, of human nature live within each one of us...and we know, in our hearts, the difference between the good and the evil, the selfish and the selfless, the right and the wrong.

I believe that it is time for us all to listen to that 'still, small, voice' within each of us, to acknowledge who we are as individuals and a society, and to firmly commit to choosing the good, the selfless, the right, even when it's the more difficult path.

I believe that it's not just time to change our president, our congress, our leaders, and our rhetoric, but that it's time to change ourselves.  

I believe that it's time for us to start realizing our potential.

I believe that it's time for us to face ourselves and, knowing that we are flawed, make a firm committment to be the best we can be, even if it means we're not always as comfortable and our neighbors don't always covet our material wealth quite as much.

I believe that it's time for us to forgive each other for our humanity, and to move forward together toward our greater humanity, without coddling the criminally insane to the point that they feel safe in violating the sancitity of the right of each of us to live without fear of random violence.

I believe that the United States of America has led by an example of rhetoric since it was born, and I believe that leadership has, in the main, been a great beacon of hope for all the world to see and aspire to.

And I believe that the time has come for us to now lead by an example of action.  To not just preach tolerance but to live with it; to not just spread democracy but to practice democracy.  To not just berate other countries for violating civil rights, but to stop violating them ourselves.  To not just say to other countries, 'you cannot have a weapon that can destroy the world,' but to say 'WE cannot have that weapon either.'  

I'm not a fantasist.  I know things won't change overnight.  I'm not perfect.  I know that something's going to piss me off and I'll issue forth with the snark. I'll make mistakes, and so will you...but maybe if we make a committment to face our mistakes and make an honest effort to not make them quite so much, we'll make them less often.

There are some who say that the world can't change overnight...but then it has, hasn't it?  Those folks who were a couple of time zones west of New York on September 11th, 2001, certainly thought it did.

I know it's harder to make a sudden change for better than for worse.  I know that the world is not going to magically transform to sweetness and light if Barack Obama is inaugurated on January 20th.

But I also know that for too long - for all of human history - we have hesitated, held back, refused to do the right thing because 'things won't change overnight.'

To quote one group of activists:  It has to start somewhere.  It has to start sometime.  What better place than here?  What better time than now?

I believe that the time has come to change the world for the better.  I believe that the United States of America can lead that change; each of us, acting together, as one nation, one society, one example.

I believe that one leader, in my lifetime, has demonstrated the strength of character and the courage of conviction to step up to the plate and insist that just because things won't change overnight is not reason to not change them; that just because things won't change all at once is no reason to not change them a little bit at a time; that just because we have made mistakes in the past is no reason to refuse to correct those mistakes in the future, and that we can start by correcting the little mistakes we make every day.

I believe, more than I've ever believed anything else, that Barack Hussein Obama has the ability to bring us together and lead us, as we lead that change.  He will not be perfect; nor will we.  He will make mistakes; so will we.  He will face challenges that tempt him to take the easier route rather than the righteous; and we will face those challenges as well.

Ladies and Gentlemen, that is why I am voting for Barack Obama for President of the United States of America, and that is why I am asking each and every one of you to vote for him too.

Because it's not just time for them to change...it's time for us to change.