On this dawning day of America’s Democracy, I hope for a better, far greater America.

Not the Republican or Democratic America.

Nor the one where the Left flies its flag on one side, and the Right flies its on the other.

But, an America where we all fly one flag, the American flag.

I hope for an America where we don’t forget those who are still fighting and struggling to have their piece of the dream we’ve all been promised for so long.

The one where poor Americans, the white and black ones, and all the other colors of the poor amongst us, are our priority, not our problem.

Where the dignity of labor for those who dig our ditches, empty our bedpans, make our beds, cook our food is no less valued than those who run our corporations, pass our laws, deliver judgment upon us and manage our portfolios.

There are the voices of Americans that must be heard. 

Those who want the same opportunity as anybody else.  They must be heard.

Those who want to be part of building a better America.  They must be heard.

Those who believe the system has let them down, that the deck is stacked against them, that their future has been ignored.  They must be heard.

White, black, or whatever color they are, they are Americans.  They must be heard.

Those Americans who wish to deprive someone else of the better America, who choose to bear grievances against others because of their skin color or whatever characteristics distinguish them as a human being, they must be heard.

But, not because we should build the America they want. 

Because they represent the America we should not want.

They are not just this group or that group of Americans.  But, they are a group of Americans.

We should work to find common ground where it exists, but we must never give ground to the idea that their smallest view of what it means to be an American is the best view of America.

If we do not hear their voices, we will be deaf to the sounds of the America they want collapsing around our Constitution and our way of life.

On this dawning day of America’s Democracy, I hope for all of us to be better than we have been to one another.

Kinder.  Perhaps just that.  Kinder.

We’ve permitted ourselves to abandon our better angels for the fleeting satisfaction and the dark glee we derive from the terrible things we write and post to and about one another.

We’ve libeled our glorious 1^st Amendment time and time again as we sullied, demeaned, defiled, debased, and defamed one another, over and over and over again.

All because we always believe “It’s my right” without often enough thinking, “Is this right?”

Is it right the things we say about one another?  To one another?

Is it right the things we believe about one another? 

Are we to believe that one group of Americans are lesser than the other because of who they voted for or against?

Where exactly does that end?

How can it be that Americans, on the one hand, will run into a burning building to save a stranger and, on the other hand, click a button calling another stranger words that would burn down their humanity?

If we were to meet that stranger who we attacked online in that burning building, would we still save them?

Would we still save them?

On this dawning day of America’s Democracy, I hope for so much more than what we have allowed ourselves to become.

All of us.

The man leaving the White House never controlled our free will. 

Nor will the man moving into the White House.

The truth is, no politician, no press, no social media platform, has ever controlled our free will.

Free will doesn’t make us poor.  Free will doesn’t make us black, white, male, female, or any other color or define us as a human being.

Free will makes us culpable for the choices we make.  Every choice we make.

Each word we speak, each post we write, each act we perform.  Those choices belong to our exercise of free will.

On this dawning day of America’s Democracy, I hope for a better, far greater America.

Not the Republican or Democratic America.

Nor the one where the Left flies its flag on one side, and the Right flies its on the other.

But, an America where we all fly one flag.

The American flag.