For Just One Day, Let's All Be Patriots

The odds are that many of you reading this didn't vote for President Obama.  In fact, if you are representative of the US population at large, if 100 of you read this, 29 of you weren't eligible to vote, 29 of you were eligible to vote but did not, 20 of you voted for Mitt Romney, 1 of you voted for a third party or independent candidate and only 21 of you actually voted for the President.  21 out of 100.  That's how our elections get decided.

It is also likely that at some point in the past four years and in the next four, President Obama will do something that you don't like.  Whether you are a human-rights activist who is incensed over the continuing practices at Gitmo, a Tea Party member who detests the expansion of the government role in health care through Obamacare, an economic conservative mad about the continuing large federal deficit or a libertarian mad that the President went against his word and went after medical marijuana facilities, there is something for everybody not to like in the way the President has governed.

But, let's make a deal.  Let's agree to put that aside for just one day.  Let's marvel at the wonder of the American Republic and the peaceful swearing in of a President for another four years.  Let's celebrate the beauty of American art, whether it be the poet laureate or the musical stylings of our pop stars.  Let's enjoy the fashion of the First Lady.  Let's admire the marching band in the parade.  Let's enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the Presidential Ball.

Let's just be Americans, for one day.  We can fight about debt ceilings and sequestration and immigration tomorrow.  Today, let's all be patriots.