Ba "Rock On!" Obama
This speech is so awesome and inspirational, I almost can't contain myself with a swelling and emotional pride that this man is a liberal and a Democrat. He represents precisely why I am a liberal Democrat. The whole speech is incredible, from start to finish; but I found his concluding segment to be humbling, utterly beautiful, and stunningly magnificent:
So let me end with another interaction I had during my campaign. A few days after I won the Democratic nomination in my U.S. Senate race, I received an email from a doctor at the University of Chicago Medical School that said the following:Amen, brother! I will follow this incredible leader all the way to the White House, because that is most certainly where he is heading. He is the real deal.
"Congratulations on your overwhelming and inspiring primary win. I was happy to vote for you, and I will tell you that I am seriously considering voting for you in the general election. I write to express my concerns that may, in the end, prevent me from supporting you."
The doctor described himself as a Christian who understood his commitments to be "totalizing." His faith led him to a strong opposition to abortion and gay marriage, although he said that his faith also led him to question the idolatry of the free market and quick resort to militarism that seemed to characterize much of President Bush's foreign policy.
But the reason the doctor was considering not voting for me was not simply my position on abortion. Rather, he had read an entry that my campaign had posted on my website, which suggested that I would fight "right wing ideologues who want to take away a woman's right to choose." He went on to write:
"I sense that you have a strong sense of justice...and I also sense that you are a fair minded person with a high regard for reason...Whatever your convictions, if you truly believe that those who oppose abortion are all ideologues driven by perverse desires to inflict suffering on women, then you, in my judgment, are not fair-minded....You know that we enter times that are fraught with possibilities for good and for harm, times when we are struggling to make sense of a common polity in the context of plurality, when we are unsure of what grounds we have for making any claims that involve others...I do not ask at this point that you oppose abortion, only that you speak about this issue in fair-minded words."
I checked my web-site and found the offending words. My staff had written them to summarize my pro-choice position during the Democratic primary, at a time when some of my opponents were questioning my commitment to protect Roe v. Wade.
Re-reading the doctor's letter, though, I felt a pang of shame. It is people like him who are looking for a deeper, fuller conversation about religion in this country. They may not change their positions, but they are willing to listen and learn from those who are willing to speak in reasonable terms - those who know of the central and awesome place that God holds in the lives of so many, and who refuse to treat faith as simply another political issue with which to score points.
I wrote back to the doctor and thanked him for his advice. The next day, I circulated the email to my staff and changed the language on my website to state in clear but simple terms my pro-choice position. And that night, before I went to bed, I said a prayer of my own - a prayer that I might extend the same presumption of good faith to others that the doctor had extended to me. [Emphasis is mine.]
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4 comments:
enigma - Thanks for your excellent and thoughtful comments. I think I agree almost 100% with your critique of some aspects of his speech. I grant you that Obama the Politician gives conservatives too little credit in some areas and also avoids identifying similar problematic trends with liberal demagoguery of faith; but he doesn't let this become the defining element of his speech, even though he is a politician after all. That, I think, is an important difference; and it is a very welcome change to see coming from someone of the democratic leadership.
What I like about Obama is that I think he gives a glimpse into what the majority of liberals of faith think. We are not all radical fringe screechers, even if we might agree with liberal notions of church/state separation. And the majority of liberals of faith are very much faith-oriented first before ideology-oriented. He captures this well and puts this on display for conservatives to see. And I welcome that.
I don't expect conservatives to vote for him only on this aspect of who he is. He is, also, committed to many of the liberal approaches to problem-solving that conservatives disagree with. But, his liberalism will come across as a principled liberalism to conservatives, I think, even if it is still perceived as mistaken.
And if it interjects an element of respectful disagreement and works towards ending the partisan rancor that has come to poison politics in our country, then I will consider him a success regardless of the votes he wins from conservatives on policy matters.
Again, thanks for your comments.
"What will that mean 10, 20, 30 years from now?"
It means everything. What you think now paints the future.
You are wrong. If the liberals had their way, America would have never gotten into WW2. You will say, liberals had the civil rights movement. But, liberals also got us into Viet Nam, and also back then had the balls to face down Castro in the Cuban missile crisis.
Huckuphchuck-
I found you through RTG. I clicked over and found the first entry on your blog about Barak. I have met him personally - and not in a political arena - and he IS what he speaks about. I believe he is the only hope for this country. I respect and admire him for the person he is all the time (at least in my experience).
I read above and I understand that those of faith have certain ideals that they apply in every setting. Well, as someone who does not believe in religion or god, let me say that I have ideals that I apply in every setting as well. I tell the truth, to the best of my ability, in order to find the truth in life. I am kind to those unknown and known. I will help, to the best of my ability, everyone I encounter every day. I try to be fair. I do not judge- ahem, until i see people judging others than I judge them in a big way. But anyway, my point is that what peope need to understand is that whether you have "faith" or not, you can be a wonderful, amazing person. And the way I see things going, soon, you will only be a "good" person if you have faith. We need to look at the qualities that hold us together instead of those that divide us.
lb - I agree with everything you said. Thanks for visiting my blog.
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