Life, Liberty....

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter”  Martin Luther King, Jr.

Rebellion in Egypt.  We, as a nation, have gone from using their government for our own black ops,  to encouraging their people to overthrow the establishment.  The fall of the Tunisian government through protest was a spark, and our government is now forced, like it or not, to encourage democracy.  It has been a long time coming.  I’ve listened to not just David Gregory ask the question:  Should we be afraid of democracy in Egypt?   I’m not a pundit, but that would be seriously insular.  I get the fear behind that question, but there is more than just fear, and the mass rebellion is bigger than a brotherhood.  Why are we so afraid of people voting for what they want?  I am guessing it is because we understand what it is to be a nation subjected to falsities and fear-based manipulations.  Some people will never trust anything the government may have to say, but giving up on the ideal of democracy as a whole is not a solution. 

We, the people, have gone through uprisings and rebellions of our own.  The Revolutionary War.  A Civil War that threatened our nation to the core.  Years of death and destruction.   Wounded Knee.  Bonus Armies turned away with gas and guns.  Kent State.  The Promised Land.  We are not strangers to rebellion and expecting change to come from assembly.  It is easy to take freedom of speech for granted and forget that some people do not have that right.  

To quote from my portable Constitution from the U.S. Capital’s  gift shop, the First Amendment says this:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”   We are not perfect; sometimes our rebellions are not peaceable.  Some of our governments’ responses are not peaceable.   Evelyn Beatrice Hall paraphrased Voltaire:  “I disapprove of what you say, but will fight to the death for your right to say it.”  My hope is that violence in Egypt does not dominate, and that the transition is smoother than was ours.

In 1865 these words concluded the second inaugural speech of President Abraham Lincoln:  “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right… let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds… to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”  Assembling the masses.  Speaking for peace and justice.          It is time.