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Madam45for2923

(7,178 posts)
2. 3
Mon Dec 12, 2016, 09:35 AM
Dec 2016
And here we are. Americans. Hopefully soon united. This isn't a partisan issue. Obama isn't late to the party. People are doing their jobs.

If you think any of this is easy, you're ignorant and delusional.

Tonight, though, I write to you with great hope.


Cue soft martial music...


This may be America's finest hour, as we act together with unshakable resolve to deal with enemies foreign and domestic.

We have done so in the past and come out a stronger, more just, more pluralistic nation.

We will do so now.

And for me? Or die trying.


America is the steward of a genius system entrusted to flawed stewards whose descendants seem to act on the right side of history.

This system is not rotten, not beyond repair, not exiled from the future.

We have been infiltrated by agents who would drive us mad.


This is a nation built on civilization, humanity, and reason, rejecting the febrile superstitions of the past.

It must stand. And will.


We are at present in a place of danger where some of our fellow citizens have forgotten our most cherished values.

We've been here before.


America, reluctantly but dutifully, recognizes its internal contradictions and failings.

Slavery. Racism. Internment. Classism.


The genius documents that gave rise to noble American sentiments were themselves authored by those who failed them. (h/t @ Mr. Jefferson)

We spilled the blood of our brothers to resolve the contradictions of slavery and then abandoned the project while killing Indians.

Americans proclaimed the equality of all men while treating women as chattel and all non-whites as lesser. We are indeed hypocrites.

But to be American is to accept that unflinchingly and to soldier forth for future generations, and DO BETTER, GODDAMN IT.

There are those who would mire us in worldly cynicism, to anchor us in a world where our institutions betray forever, where values perish.

And to be American is to face that intellectual, moral, and spiritual assault with the unshakeable devotion to something more lofty.

And when that loftiness fails, as it so often does, to be American is to seize it again and again, knowing that our Creator desire Progress.

Progress can come from Traditionalists or Labor Unionists or mystics or musicians or doctors or Senators or journalists. All are exhorted.

The Progress demanded by our Creator can be achieved by immigrants and natives, skeptics and believers, the elite and the humble alike.

That is America. That is the promise that Americans oft ignore and which more cynical nations would defile for their own gain.

That America will last long after I have died, long after new people have picked the torch.

Long after we betray it again, as we will.


But America will go on, even if by another name, unless all who have heard her name are extinguished.

This is just the locus of promise.

America came from the olive groves of Italy and the shipyard of Plymouth and the islands of the Philippines. Indivisible.

America came from the Torah and Voltaire's Candide and Adam Smith and zen koans and Greek mathematics and Rumi's poetry.

America is all these things, and should yet another absolutist demagogue, foreign or domestic seize her, it will be far from the end.

Now is a time for patriots.

It's also Sunday afternoon. I'm gonna get a beer and watch football.

God Bless America, and all nations.


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Cont'd: Madam45for2923 Dec 2016 #1
3 Madam45for2923 Dec 2016 #2
great stuff NewJeffCT Dec 2016 #3
Knr voteearlyvoteoften Dec 2016 #4
Thank you for putting all this together for us. Qutzupalotl Dec 2016 #5
Latest Discussions»Retired Forums»2016 Postmortem»Eric Garland storified wi...»Reply #2