Clarence Thomas is Awake at the Inauguration

From this photo...

A New Year

So we have the beginning of a new year, for many a new semester, and a new president. This is a time of new opportunities to get things right a second time around and get new things right the first time. We have the ability to right our wrongs and right others wrongs.

What does this mean to us personally? It's simple, albeit something that will leave a bad taste in many people's mouths. We have to forgive. We have to forgive every person who voted for BushCo once or twice, or even three times if they did so do that this time. We have to forgive everyone who voted for McCain. We have to forgive everyone who didn't want Obama to be the Democratic nominee. This is a time for unity.

We must repair the fractures that exist in American society. Take lessons from the way that the Bush Administration (and others past) have run this nation on the basis of partisan politics and partisan thinking and actions. We have to find the strength to let go the feelings of hate or disgust we may still harbor for anyone in this nation no matter their background and no matter the reason why we don't like them in the first place.

One of the hardest things a person has to do in life is to look into the eyes of a person who doesn't think that you have a right to your opinion or your beliefs or your life and tell them that you will respect their right to think that. It is their right. Every bigot and every misguided person (in yours and my opinion) have the right to believe everything and anything that they want. However, the line is drawn when they try to make others believe it and or try to use these beliefs to affect policy which discriminates against us.

I repeat: This is a nation which enjoys the freedoms of speech and personal thought. In this nation you're allowed to be gay without government interference and you're allowed to be a homophobe. You are allowed to be racist and you're allowed to be Black or foreign or whatever. You're allowed to believe or not believe any religion of your choice. Freedom to exists in both instances and in both directions. Freedom is not a matter of right and wrong. It's a matter of learning tolerance.

Further, learning to accept that people don't like you and don't like your way of life or your opinions and beliefs will garner us all equality. Equality isn't about forcing everyone to believe everything that you do. It's about allowed people to freely think what they want.

Once we are able as a society to feel comfortable in the fact that we will not be shunned for our beliefs or actions, we will not feel as if we have to fight for them. We won't need to lash out at those who have different beliefs and we won't need to shun them in return.

If all homophobes or racists or whatever need to not be that anymore is knowledge about the groups that they are against, then clearly we must start with allowing them to hold their beliefs. It's a compromise. They believe what they want and we believe what we want and no one will judge each other for their beliefs or opinions. Period. Remove the fear of the other group and we remove one of the roadblocks to the knowledge that they need in many people's opinions to accept gays or Blacks or whatever. When groups do not feel vicitimized they are more willing to listen and more willing to accept the views of others.

So America, what we have to do is forgive. Forgive everyone for everything that they have done. We need to start anew with a mutual agreement for civility. What will come of this, I do not know. But I do know that with civility we will be happy, all of us, even if we don't all agree.

A Step Forward

Know this now, that one day your children will read of a time when racism had been dealt a fatal blow and know that then they will ask why it took so very long. Know this now, that one day we will have the chance to look back upon today and ask if we did what was right or what was wrong. In knowing the future, it would be a simple answer. Yet now, it remains as complex as the world itself, because the problems of mankind are tied so closely to the hearts of all the people of the world that they are not so easily untied from the convictions of our hearts and thereby the people of this world itself.

Know this, that, come what may, this world has changed forever. On this day, the 20th of January 2009, history has been made. In the coming years it will continue to be made, no doubt, but let us not forget the unity that this nation depends on to succeed. If for one day we can put aside partisanship for the pomp and circumstance of this day, then why not for another or another after that? Can we join together and progress? Will we put aside our immaterial and skin-deep differences? Does this nation have the ability to continue?

This is our hour, and our chance, to continue for this world the promise of great men and women of our past, the dream of justice and peace for each and every creature no matter how big or small, significant or seemingly unimportant. This is our day. Remember it and build on it. Our very continued existence depends on our cooperation. Not only will we be judged by the actions of our coming years, but history will show us whether or not justice and peace and equality for all will continue and profligate or if it will die in good intentions and misdirection.

This is the calling of our lives. Embrace it. And let this nation's successes be seen the world over not in the name of a god or a cause but in the name of humanity. Such is our task. Let us now get started.

One Wish

If I had one wish in life, I wouldn't ask for riches or fame. I wouldn't ask for health or love. I wouldn't ask anything more or anything less than this: I wish that everyone, everywhere, from this day until the end of the human race would be able to understand exactly how each other is feeling at any point for any reason.

Then I realized, we already can and many of us still choose not to for personal gain.