abandon what this country’s potential ? Is it our destiny to become what our naysayers have said we have been all along ? Is this experiment in democracy a failure ?
This has never been a contest...but to put this in a metric that will resonate with what we’ve been programmed to respond to; The Terrorist have won. Building a wall to separate ourselves from our neighbors solves nothing. When we discriminate against people and alienate our neighbors we look weak and self-conscious. When we reject the principles that our nation was founded upon we look like liars. When we reject refugees from war torn lands and judge people based on their religion we look like hypocrites. We have slowly but surely been marching away from the nation we could be; the nation we are supposed to be. We’ve been moving toward this for sometime now. Some of us have been screaming the whole way and some of us have ignored the warning signs. It is time to wake the fuck up people.
This the moment when our decisions matter. This is the moment when apathy and inaction are the same as complicity. This is when we must weigh our words and our actions, for our worsts decisions, will be used against us. Those who would strip us of our birthrights and usher away from the principle of liberty control the narrative. For all the Fear and Hatred we must show Compassion and Courage. For all the Lies and misdirection we must expose the truth and adhere to logic. For all the threats and violence we must show strength and solidarity. For all the bigotry we must show understanding. From today forward we have to cultivate the best in ourselves, so the we can demand the best from our country. We can no longer shy away from Liberty. We must meet her gaze and accept her challenge. We have to be who we have always claimed to be. We have to look out into the world and proudly proclaim...
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
The golden door has been shut. It is time now to open it wide and welcome humanity to our shores. To live up to our potential as a nation and be that luminous light democracy and liberty, sundering the gloom of oppression that is creeping upon our world. We must find our way !