One of the best parts of this election (aside from Saturday Night Live, of course) has been the election-night and next-morning blog posts. You can probably guess my electoral sympathies from a few of these, and I’ll leave it at that. Allow me to quote some:

Will Wilkinson on libertarianism:

I usually do vote on big elections, and I vote expressively. I’m a bit disappointed to not do it this time around, since I would like to almost vote for Barack Obama before finding myself paralyzed by the Holy Spirit and then finally voting for Bob Barr.

D.A. Ridgely of Positive Liberty (before the election) on libertarianism and Barack Obama:

I won’t be voting, expressively or otherwise, in this election cycle. If I did, it wouldn’t be for Barr, whom I trust only, precisely and thankfully not to get elected. When the dust settles, he and his hyperactive snake oil salesman of a running mate will have harmed the Libertarian Party more than they helped it, but that’s okay. The Libertarian Party is almost entirely irrelevant to libertarianism and, like the good battered wife it is, it will undoubted find even worse candidates four years from now.

And yet he is, after all, a black man and his election does constitute an almost overpoweringly important symbolic moment in American history. Because of the importance of that history, I wish Barack Obama, personally, the best of luck even as I hope against hope that his administration will “accomplish” next to nothing.

Slacktivist (before the election) on bigotry at the Palin rallies:

We are not seeing a crowd of naive simpletons being led astray by demagoguery. We are seeing a crowd of people who have chosen to accept unreal ideas, and who are therefore forced to embrace The Stupid. Racism, bigotry and xenophobia are immoral, of course, but they are also, just as fundamentally, untrue. They are unreal. They provide a theory and a framework for living in the world that cannot be reconciled with the reality of this world.

Jason Kuznicki of Positive Liberty on Prop 8 and gay rights:

It feels like the beginning of the end for us. If our family can’t be protected in California, it soon won’t be protected anywhere. I’ve never really thought about moving to Canada, but if ballot measures like the Arkansas one continue to pass, it will become very difficult, at least for families, to remain. Note that gays who only want anonymous sex can get by just fine even when marriage is outlawed. It’s when we want to have families and ordinary lives that they hate us the most.

Brady on Prop 8:

This makes my heart hurt. I had never felt more defeated, demeaned, and disillusioned in my life than when I watched Texas vote 75% in favor of banning gay marriage in our Constitution. I literally felt physically ill when it happened. I had hoped for more from California.

Andrew Sullivan on Prop 8:

In the long arc of inclusion, we will miss our goals along the way from time to time. Today, we have full marriage rights in two states, we have many civil marriages in California that will remain in place as examples of who gay people really are, we have civil unions in many more places, and marriage rights in other parts of the world, as beacons to America. And this is a civil rights movement. It goes forward and it is forced back.