More Perfect

Perhaps the most insidious word in the english language is inevitable. Once someone decides in the inevitability of some fate, they then resign themselves to it. As in, the inevitable corporate takeover of the United States, as put into motion by the corruption on the Supreme Court, who have acted against the will of the people. As in, the inevitable collapse of the United States hegemony, which, if we’re honest, hasn’t always worked in the interest of those same people, more so in recent decades. In truth, nothing is inevitable! This was the position of Frederick Douglas when the Dred Scott Decision, that fateful and cruel abuse of the Supreme Court that diminished black men and women, free or not, to less than citizen status, simply because the founders of our nation lacked sufficient imagination or empathy to see them as people.

Beware those who report to you that they intend to align the Constitution, not with the knowledge that we have amassed over centuries of literal bloodshed and fighting and rioting, reaching for our rights with the desparation of a drowning man, but with the backwards views of a less enlightened time. The Enlightenment was not the end of human knowledge, but the beginning, and we’ve built on that beginning. We’ve tested our vain ideas about eugenics, about lackluster intelligence, about inferiority, and about the “right kind of people.”

We, the People…

These are the words that began a revolution that was never quite complete, and never truly can be. The idea that might makes right, popular among the lecherous among us, was never fully defeated, because it could not fully imagined by the founding fathers. The best we got from them was that they knew their shortcomings, and hoped for something better. They wrote those words as in a dream of some nation that never before, and perhaps never can again, exist in such a world.

There are those among us who claim that the fall of the United States is as inevitable as the fall of Rome.

That word again.

That insidious lie, told so often as if the very people using it are willing it to become true. But they haven’t read the Constitution, have they? Or if they have, it was only in action. The words rolled by meaningless before their eyes, their hearts haven’t truly comprehended its meaning. We the people are still here, and we are not hate.

We are love.

We are proof.

We are evidence that reason can bring might to its knees. We’re a proud people, who have forgotten why we should be proud. We are the makers of our own destinies, who have forgotten what destiny is. Read it again.

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

A more perfect Union. This is not a one-and-done nation. This is not a nation etched in stone, unchanging except for the weathering of the marble until one day there is nothing but white sand. 

This is a nation built to change. 

This is a machine, one with all the parts exposed to hundreds of millions of engineers, each perfecting, changing, evolving the machine toward that vision, while fully realizing that true perfection is unattainable, and yet still we try.

This is a nation of belief.

It’s a nation that once was and will again become a beacon to the world.

We only must believe we can.

The constitution is a tool, with which we craft the future of all humankind. When we lose our way, as we have often and of late, letting fear sink our hope, and anger poison our dialogue, then, we must work to find it again. We must not fear change, and we must realize the weaknesses which were exploited by those who want to deport, shackle, and even kill people who are in our country, doing harm to nobody. We must stop pretending, stop rationalizing the double-speak just because it would be easier not to fight.

We’ve been fighting since we were born.

This nation is worth fighting for. And this nation is the spirit of the world, and holds in its future the destiny of the stars. We are meant to inherit a universe, but not hobble it. We are meant to lift the people around us, and not push them down while lifting ourselves. Because that first line says we, the people, not me, the people.

Don’t despair. Don’t fall. And perhaps most importantly, don’t fade away. 

There are battles to be fought in the halls of congress, there are protests to attend in the streets, and there are people who need us to be ready. There those who are attacked with violent words and acts by those who claim that the others are not real Americans. They forget the truth. It is we, the people, and not a few of us. We are so close…so close…to living up to our creed. We are so close to stamping out the hipocracy of our founding and becoming a nation that truly represents that freedom we claim to hold so dear.

We’ve learned over the years, and centuries, that all humans have the capability to do great things. We’ve learned that every human being in the right circumstance, like a plant fed and watered and given plenty of nutrients, can blossom. And as importantly, we’ve learned that we have enough on this earth, and within the borders of this nation, to help all of our citizes to reach their potential. And the most important thing about America, the idea?

An idea can spread. An idea can leap over boundaries and can infect the hearts of oppressors and the oppressed, giving the oppressed the strength to rise up. This is why people immigrate here. It is because they’ve caught it. They’ve realized what it means to be an American, and have taken the effort to find their kin.

They are coming home.

And like all relatives, opening our doors is the right thing to do. Welcoming in our brothers and sisters, those who hold in their hearts the true meaning of America. Any of these are our kin. Any of these are our brethren, our sisters. Anyone who holds true in their heart the meaning of equality, the right of freedom, and the responsibility to one another—these are our people.

There’s always enough room for more Americans in America. And if we hear speak of inevitability, remember this: an idea can’t die. An aspiration can’t be erased. This nation cannot be undermined because the will of it—the heart of it—rests within each and every one of us.

If there is anyone who is not American, it is that person who says that my hard working neighbor is not worthy. This person is a liar, both to themselves, and to others. If there ever was an enemy within, it is that person who can’t be bothered to help his brother or sister. These are un-American activities.

What about the founders? Remember: more perfect. We are the ones who deliver on that promise, and we must act like it. We must modify the constitution to eleminate the electoral college, that relic of a bygone age. We must destroy the idea that land can vote. I’ve never seen a pot of soil beside me in line at the voting boot. Have you?

We must root out corruption at all levels, but most especially in the leadership of our nation. And we must not be foolish enough to think that a corrupt man can do such a job.

We need to shed ourselves of the obviously ridiculous and make ourselves more perfect. But don’t get caught up in ourselves. As sure as our demise is most definitely not inevitable, neither is our success. America is a battleground. America is being forged from iron, with each generation taking a swing. There is no winning, because there is no perfect. There is only being made more perfect. And that, we most definitely can do.