I Guess If Someone Has to Be Given All This Power, It Might As Well Mean Something

Will Wilkinson does a great job of summarizing my own conflicted feelings over the election of Barack Obama. He too was moved, and has gotten caught up in the transformative cultural importance of a black president. However, also like me, he has deep misgivings about the excessive role the government plays in our lives and how it captures our counciousness, making it difficult for people to see how they can do anything to positively change the world outside the halls of state.

In essence, here is the way I (and Will) feel: it's a shame that politics in general (and presidental power in particular) means what it means to so many people. But given the fact that it does mean that much to many people, Obama's election represents important progress, and is a powerful, symbolic event in history of the country (and the world).

Worth reading.