"It's here they got the range and the machinery for change"

It seems that we have reached a point where we are all tired of being divided. Because, in America, unity is what it's all about. Right?

Yeah, and there really is a fountain of youth in Florida, of all places. Cities made of gold (my Boston comes close to that, actually) and whiskey streams, all that jazz.

What happened post-9/11, the "re-unification" of America, was a fluke. Our natural state as Americans is combative and argumentative. It's one of those things I like so much about our country. And Barack, I love him, but he talks about there only being one America -- which is sort of true. But that one America is one great big family, full of the same constant squabbling and petty disagreements that all families are prone to. (Raise your hand if you thought going on the silver standard was the answer to all of our problems? William Jennings Bryan? Anyone? Anyone?) We're all constantly taking sides; it's what we do. Even back in the beginning, you think everyone was gung-ho about the Boston Tea Party? You think they were all stoked that they had no tea in the city, unless you wanted to drink the salty harbor water? No, Sam Adams was cool with it, but it was pretty much his idea, and he drank beer for breakfast instead of tea, anyway. Because he was a badass.

They were divided into three camps, really. The sons of liberty, who were all about this "Don't shoot 'til you see the whites of their eyes!" "For Boston!" "Give me liberty or give me death!" "My only regret is that I have but one life to lose!" super-sized, value-meal pride. The Loyalists, who mostly cowered in their houses and ran away when the men with torches came to smoke them out. Because the English are posh and get Germans to fight it for them, why don't you understand I can't get gunpowder on my dress reds or dust on my breeches! (I may be simplifying the Loyalists' side a bit.)

And then you have the people who were just sitting back and watching it all happen, who were likely recruited by the Sons of Liberty and the Minute Men (Motts in a Minute: for the American Revolutionary in your life!) and then watched as their children died in a brutal, muskets-and-bayonets war. I'm not, after all, trying to glorify the American Revolution. It's a fascinating case-study, though. Hey, doesn't that whole "recruited by the Sons of Liberty" segment look an awful lot like the working class Americans who watch their children join the ranks of the military today? Another grand American tradition, no doubt.

And there was actually a fourth type of person involved in this war: Benedict Arnold. But that's a different issue altogether.

Look at how riled about we get about sports. I was sitting in class and met a boy from New York. I asked him if he was Yankees or Mets and he praised the Steinbrenners as the height of moralistic behavior. (And Derek Jeter as the height of class -- there's obviously work to be done there.) We started talking about Manny, and how he let three lovely pitches float by him -- "Not the Cardinals, not the Mariners, not the Brewers. No, it had to be the Yankees." And suddenly, we were in a three-way debate with the boy sitting behind us, who happened to be from Milwaukee.

We're American; it's in our nature to be stubborn and hard-headed and to believe firmly that we are right about everything. It is in our nature to believe that we know what is best for everyone. And it is in our nature to be disagreeable and contrary. (Really, Mom, I'm just being a good American.) All this nonsense about the good old days, when America was one happy country and it was rainbows and butterflies all the time -- show it to me in the history books. Give me a period of time when the peace and prosperity were not interrupted by protests and civil rights' violations. When all Americans actually trusted and loved their government. When the government wasn't full of more pettiness and in-fighting than a clique of high school girls.

Basically, show me a period in American history when we didn't all behave like spoiled, entitled middle class high school students. I'm not criticizing, because I love America. And history would be so boring if we all got along all the time. And nothing would ever change. How stagnant would life be, if we were all placid and happy?

So I say, good for you, America. This country was born of division, not Kumbayah; we had to fight and bleed and kill and die for those things we needed, for the freedom we craved. And indeed, it is only through division and opposition that this country has moved forward. I sort of like being out of the slave-owner days, myself. And if we have to keep fighting for what we need, if people have to keep screaming until someone finally hears them, or gets tired of fighting about this and wants to move on to something new, then thank god we live in a country where we can do that. Thank god we can fight and claw our way toward equality, where we can sit on buses and refuse to move, where we can burn our bras and gather together to ask for an end to human rights' violations. Because otherwise, it would never happen. And it needs to.

I'm not applauding Barack for choosing someone to speak at his inauguration who is filled with hatred and venom toward an entire group of people, because that's not what I mean when I say that we need to fight, that there needs to be action-reaction. People like Fred Phelps are not the sort of Americans I am talking about here. But a team of people willing to have open debates, however dug into their own beliefs they are, that's what this country has always needed. And I'm not talking Jacksonian duels, here, guys. (Though, how awesome would that be?)

So, Mr. President, on this, the eve of your inauguration, I'm asking you to please not silence opposition and disagreement because it is the only thing that will ever save us. It's not that we always agree or see eye to eye that makes us great. It's that we don't always agree and we never see eye to eye, but we stick together anyway, we don't secede, we don't break off and form our own enclaves or countries. (Uh, usually. Well, at least, most of the time?) Like any real family, the fighting doesn't ruin us.

If this country needs a fight, a knock-down, drag-out brawl to get to the next level, then that's a fight I'll join. And if it looks like a bar fight with swinging chairs and flying kegs, then I'll know my darling brother has joined the fray, as well.




Oh, and I'm making a couple rules right now.

1. Catholics cannot marry non-Catholics, or they will be ex-communicated. No questions asked. Nor can Jewish people marry non-Jews, etc. (Hey, it's Church doctrine, sugar. I'm just doing what God says is right.)
2. Atheists cannot get married at all. (After all, it's a religious thing, isn't it? There should be no marriages that go unrecognized by the Church, right?)
3. If you only had a civil ceremony, your union is henceforth a civil union. You get what you pay for. And since the Bible mentions marriage, marriage has to mention God.
4. Brunettes cannot marry each other. Because, hell, I'm feeling arbitrary.



What's that, Thomas Jefferson, slave owner and lover of Sally Hemmings? The rights of the minority should never be decided by the majority? Someday, love, someday.