The Dream

When my forefathers set foot on this continent they were bound. I am fortunate enough to not be shackled by thier chains. When they came they were excluded from the covenant of this country, but I am not.

We owe it to ourselves and our children to continue the journey towards freedom. I believe that the path to liberty lies in equality and dignity. But these are complex issues. To insure them legally we must first define them.

There are many types of equality, equality of opportunity, equal protection under the law, and equal enforcement of the law, equal access to government resources. A black kid in Detroit should have the same chance to make something of himself as white kid in Bloomfield Hills. But if we want true equality it we can not just base our success in this regard on race. The dream the covenant is based on is meritocracy.

If you want to learn, work, or speak that knowledge, work and speech should carry you as far as it can without the glass ceilings of gender, class, race, geography, religion and sexual orientation. I dream of a world where the measure of a man or a woman is the quality of their ideas.

In order for such a world to exist everyone must be given a chance. Everyone must be given a chance to learn. Everyone must be given a chance to listen. Everyone must be given a chance to think. Everyone must be give a chance to dream. Everyone must be given a chance to speak. Everyone must be given a chance.

Everyone must be given a chance to speak. Under the law speech is to be protected. An idea may be shouted down but it must be allowed to be spoken regardless of its source because a good idea is a good idea.

One of the greatest expressions of this is the right to vote. Everybody over the age of 18 gets a voice. And not just a voice an equal voice. The President's ballot is treated the same as Bill Gates', is treated the same my grandmother's is treated the same as mine.

Equality is hard to enforce legally because it all boils down to how people treat each other and how the hell can you legislate that? It's hard.  However, we can legislate how the instruments of the state operate, and the instrument of a republic is the ballot.

I mourn the Voting Rights act of 1965, but the sacred right of the ballot should not be have been considered complete by Congress. We became complacent. We became complacent towards the rights of man!

The sad truth is that equality can not be completed because of history and the odd and diverse circumstances of humanity.  But we can draw a line. We can strive for equality. Even if you can barely afford ham sandwich  you get a say. If you're and old man and can barely walk, you get a say. If you can barely write your name you get a say. If you're pregnant and can't stand in the line you get a say. If you're second generation and the first in you're family to cast a ballot here you get a say.

That is the start. And that is the least we can do.