Conserve THIS!

I wonder how many times in our history such a widespread simultaneous celebration has taken place. Last night, the majority of people on every single continent on this planet erupted in joy as Obama officially earned the title of "President-Elect".

More importantly, the win signified a major and permanent generational shift in politics in the United States--a trend that you have to assume will spread throughout the free world. Advocates of social and economic conservatism have been shrinking in numbers as more and more liberal-minded youth are growing up.

While the Right will need to reinvent itself in order to have another chance at power, advocates of the old-school conservative ideology will die a slow death. Three states passed anti-gay legislation during the election and California (of all places) was one of them, which put the status of thousands of married couples in jeopardy. And while Obama's gains among rural voters in the north were impressive, white voters in the deep south flatly rejected him.

But here's the thing. Conservatism as it stands has never and will never work. It's a known fact that a bad economy usually results in a Republican defeat during the election season, which makes you wonder why Americans have taken so long to catch on to this trend. An unregulated free market allows the rich and greedy to seize control of power without the best intentions in mind, and the economy has consistently failed under a system that allows the gap between the rich and the poor to expand. The credit crisis was not an accident.

For that matter, no ideology will ever work in government, conservative or otherwise. By definition, change and adaptation to a shifting world is often at odds when a rigid set of ideals are put in place whether they happen to be on the Left or the Right. Our generation understands this, just as the generations after us will learn from our mistakes. Obama represents a long awaited return to logic. His campaign, and hopefully his presidency, has shunned the easy giveaways and pointless ideological attacks that have plagued prior elections.

And so, there will be enormous pressure on Obama to prove to the world that fiscally responsible liberalism can work in government, and that our generation is ready to lead. However, if you consider the fact that the majority of the American people elected a minority candidate as president, it's clear to me that success has already been achieved.