Posted on 03/18/2008 1:02:06 PM PDT by mdittmar
Thanks. It is funny how the agitators always get face time on news shows but those who have really accomplished something do not.
My comments will be placed in brackets where I think appropriate.
We the people, in order to form a more perfect union.
{The qualifier — more — is placed before perfect. A more perfect union does not equal a perfect union}
Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America’s improbable experiment in democracy.
Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery,
{The original sin of slavery was committed on the continent of Africa, where Africans of one tribe were enslaved by another tribe. Before they were transferred to America they were already in bondage The sin had already been committed. If the aforementioned sin had not been first originally committed by black Africans — on the person of their fellow black Africans — it would be highly unlikely we would be having this discussion.}
A question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least 20 more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.
{Unfortunately it was a question that was preempted in Africa — long before any slaves arrived on American shores. As an analogy, imagine the relationship of the supplier, or pusher of dangerous drugs, and the buyer of those drugs Addictive drugs that will — in time — harm not only the buyer, but his community as well. It takes both parties, seller and buyer, in order for the transaction to take place. In a similar way to the forgoing, the egregious business of slavery, the original sin, taint or stain — as Obama put it — spread from Mother Africa to its new host in America.}
Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution — a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.
And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States.
What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part — through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk — to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.
{fair enough}
(Snip)
But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.
End.
To be frank, except for the tendency to play the victim card that the left is so fond of playing, I think it was a pretty good speech.
The problem is that all we have from Obama is eloquent words with very little substance or action on his part to go on.
Unfortunately, the image of Obama refusing to put his hand on his heart during the anthem, or wear a flag-pin, is hard to dispel from ones mind.
Also, his ungrateful wife who obviously has an attitude.
What a sad choice we have for President:
Hilary, McCain, Obama.
Who should one vote for?
Its like playing Russian roulette with three deadly bullets in the chamber.
The odds of survival are not very good.
The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nations original sin of slavery,
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