Round three: CO, NM; Update: Fox calls Ohio for Obama; Update: CNN calls Iowa for Obama; Update: Fox calls Virginia for Obama; Update: Denver Post calls Colorado for Obama; Update: NBC calls the election for Obama

I, like most of you, am a little concerned about this election. Today is the day. There is no turning back now. Pray for the best, but brace for the worst. But let me say this in case the worst case scenario occurs; it’s not the end of the world.
My wife is from Venezuela. She immigrated here legally for the opportunities our country provides. It also doesn’t hurt that I’m here too but that’s another story. I have been there four times and I have seen how socialism ruins countries firsthand. I have seen the shanties on the hills of Caracas and Puerto La Cruz, and I have seen poverty with my own eyes. I consider these trips luxuries as very few of us have ever had the privilege of being reminded of what a great country we have. Venezuela has it all, food shortages, high murder and crime rates, crumbling infrastructures, nation-wide blackouts, a currency that you couldn’t exchange at gunpoint and a government that stifles all criticism and free speech for their own agenda. Life under Hugo Chavez or any dictator is definitely not pleasant and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone from what I’ve seen.
However, it’s not all bad. Despite the poverty and squalor that I have seen, I have seen very beautiful things in that country. There are very beautiful sceneries and landscapes but that’s not the most enchanting thing about the country I experienced. It’s the people.
It’s been said that adversity brings out the best in people. I have seen this. Some of the most amazing people I have ever met have been Venezuelan, both here and in their homeland. Their country has been circling the drain at the hands of a narcissistic madman for years and they still find reasons to live life with a smile on their face. The Venezuelans I’ve met have the strongest core family values I have ever met. They don’t have a lot but what they have means everything to them. It’s something to be envied. They cherish what they have and they appreciate what little they have more than we something appreciate the mass quantities of stuff we have here.
I got reminded of this in March of this year. I went to a Venezuelan wedding, the second I’ve ever been too. The first one was my own. It was my wife’s niece who was getting married and it served as the biggest wake-up call I ever got. This was a party! My wedding was a party. I’ve often said that we don’t know how to party in this country and I can prove it. Parties in Venezuela don’t end until they run out of whiskey.
The one thing I noticed is that these people were having fun. They were smiling! They were enjoying life! They were celebrating the union of two people who wanted to live as husband and wife and they couldn’t be happier. We have it so good that we tend to think of people living under that kind of oppression would be living in sorrow. That they would be depressed all the time to not have the freedoms we enjoy. Not true. Life is still worth living even though things are tough. There is always a reason to keep moving forward and there is always a reason to never give up the fight. There’s always a reason to keep going and there’s always a reason to stay optimistic. Things can only get better because we know they can be much worse than they are now.
We take our lives for granted in this country and this election is at least a wake up call that all we have accumulated in life is fragile. It can all be gone tomorrow. How we deal with that is going to be the test for the kind of people we really are. Do we lie down and accept our fate? Or do we stand up, dust ourselves off and say to the word, “is that the best you got?” Do we keep smiling in the face of adversity or do we regroup as Americans and strive to overcome it?
I don’t want to make this a doom and gloom piece, it’s not my intention. If Obama wins on Election Day it’s not the end of the world. Hell, it may not be as bad as we are imagining. Human beings, in general, tend to gravitate to the most extreme when faced with prospects that are unsettling to them. But if they are that bad, do we give up? No. We fight. The election is not the end of the story, it’s the beginning. We can lose our material possessions, we can even lose some of our freedoms, but if we lose we are as Americans then we are truly lost, period. If Obama wins, he will be our president, but that doesn’t mean we give him carte blanche. He works for us and we won’t let him forget that. If he tries to silence us, we will only scream louder. If he knocks us down, we will get back up on our feet. If he does something that enrages us, let him know how angry we are in no uncertain terms. On the same token, if by some miracle, he does something worthy of praise, we should not be ashamed to commend him for it. It’s because we as Americans have always been judged by how we deal with adversity. It’s time, once again that we remind ourselves of that.
That’s the one thing I learned by going to Venezuela, life is still worth living, there’s still beauty in the world, and if all we have is our family and friends, we can get thru anything.
God bless America, and may God bless all of us, no matter what happens.

Pcoop on November 4, 2008 at 9:59 PM