THE CIVIL WAR ENDED AT APPOMATTOX Courthouse when General Lee surrendered to General Grant; while the Confederacy unraveled and occasional skirmishes took place, the war was, for all intents and purposes, dead. But the appetites that caused that great conflict were far from satiated. Consider the Ku Klux Klan and other such groups. Consider that lynchings continued in the south and segregation was the rule through the late 1960s. While racism was more subtle in the north, it was just as damning. Perhaps it was more insidious as it was disguised under a mask of civility and hypocrisy. It took four generations to accomplish what was begun by the Lincoln administration. Brown v. the Board of Education began a wave of integration that broke through the American apartheid and left a more diverse society in its wake. But this was four generations after the Civil War had come to an end.
Why do I recite this history? Because the struggles for human rights are not accomplished in one generation. Indeed, they take several. It is the process of inculcating a new value to the next generation and allowing them to infuse the society with its influence. As a social liberal I am aware that it is my daughters that will carry on the battle. They are the ones for whom the war is fought. They must make the peace. While I am disappointed that President Bush will lead this country for the next four years, I am aware that it will be a process of generations to bring this county to a place where we will embody the words that were uttered at our nation’s birth: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
We stand at a cross-road in the process. Christian conservatives claim that they have influenced the outcome of the elections and, as God’s latter day prophets, they seek to repristinate this wayward nation and return it to the values that they perceive to be at its roots: a fundamentalist interpretation of what they consider to be biblical truth. President Bush has noted that he will press for a constitutional ban on Gay marriages. One has to wonder why this is an issue to be taken up on a constitutional basis. Is this merely a façade that conceals the agenda for which Mr. Bush has been elected? Is this pandering to the lowest common denominator? Is this not a blatant attempt to limit the rights of a particular group on the basis of sexual preference?
Mr. Bush has stood by his refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocols that even Vladimir Putin signed. He has chosen to ignore a recent report noting that the permafrost is melting and that the artic is deleteriously effected by the increase of green-house gasses. The Republicans have denied the existence of global warming since the Reagan administration. In the name of individual rights they have sold out the individual to corporate profits, seeking instead to pander to the needs of corporate greed.
Rights have to be balanced by responsibility. No rights are absolute. They are limited by the rights of others. I may have a right to freely express my opinions; I do not have the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre when there is none. It is immoral to the degree that to do so would cause harm to others. What about lying about global warming or the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Are these not the analogy to crying fire where there is none? These are immoral acts that exceed the fair limitations of the rights of nations.
When the Confederacy was unraveling Jefferson Davis was quoted as saying that it had “died of an idea.” The idea, of course, was that each state was free to do as it wished and was not subject to a greater good. The rights of the majority in a given state or jurisdiction could impose a tyranny upon its marginalized members. Still, it took another 100 years to win the peace. We should not lose hope in the United States, despite this surge to the right and flirtation with a kinder, gentler fascism. It is time to raise our voices and lead our representatives in the direction of hope in freedom and equality for all.
Ah, but I am only a fool…
