At roughly noon, Barack Obama is going to give a speech that calls on all of us to drop a lot of our cynicism and make changes in our lives for the betterment of our nation. Typically, people make resolutions on New Year’s Day, but today is a much more appropriate moment to reflect on what you’ve been doing with your life and whether or not you might be better off doing things a little differently. Quit smoking? Start exercising? Find some public service work to do? Join AmeriCorp or the Peace Corp? Rethink that idea that you could never serve in the armed services. Send in that application to the State Department. Do some pro bono work. Whatever it is, we should all resolve to take advantage of this moment in history to rededicate ourselves to the perfection of our Union.
When millions of people heed the call and take the inspiration to do good in this world, we can’t fail to turn things around. That, for me, is what today is all about. I dedicated the last four years of my life to fighting against my government. I fought against it in order to save it because I believed it could be saved if only good people did not stand by and do nothing. But, likewise, our government can only prosper if people work just as hard to make it work now that it will be run by people that believe it should work.
So, let us rededicate ourselves to the proposition that together we can ‘form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
Onward.