Blogging The Vote

I signed up for blogging the vote because I'm one of those people who believes that every American over 18 has not only the right but the responsibility to do so. Even if you don't vote the way I am voting, I want you to vote. We are a democracy. We must ALL have a voice. All of us. That's how it works.

Here's an excerpt from a sermon first given in 1946 (details below). It was delivered again yesterday at a sermon in my own town. I like it. Plus, it uses the word perfidy. Which, while not a positive trait, if you could call it a trait, is nevertheless a really great word.

The American Commitment
by A. Powell Davies
from "About Being an American," a sermon delivered at All Souls Unitarian Church, Washington DC, on May 26 1946, in Without Apology: Collected Meditations on Liberal Religion Forrest Church, ed.

The American commitment is to universal justice, the rights for all eople, not the special interests of some. It is a commitment to fair play, to patience, to tolerance, to neighborliness. It is a commitment to the common good. It protects liberty with unity, the opportunity of each with the good of all. It is compassionate, humanitarian. It believes in humanity and in its future. It is the Golden Rule. It is based upon the claim of conscience and the faith in goodness. It begins not in a system but within the heart.

It battles prejudice and false opinion. It seeks the truth. It is opposed to barriers of exclusiveness. Its principles are universal. It despises cowardice, including moral cowardice. But it also has no use for obstinacy, inflexibility, and intolerance. It prefers honesty to cleverness, kindness to self sufficiency, goodwill to narrow-minded aims. It is a way of life now and a faith, a vision of the future. It is a purpose to be served.

If anyone asks by what right I define these characteristics as American, I point them to those Americans the rest of us revere as great. I say that America is defined by the moral progress she has sought, and by exemplars, not by the hour of perfidy and by her little-minded greedy foes.

And if anyone tells me that these characteristics are more than American, that they are universal, I will reply that that is why they are American. Because this nation was not founded on the divisive and separate, but upon the rights of all people. Can we restore these standards? Can we seek again the tough of greatness?

The future will depend upon the answer. Upon what takes place in heart and conscience. A nation, like an individual, must have a soul.

For more on Blogging the Vote, head on over to Chasing Ray http://www.chasingray.com/ Have fun voting!

[Cross-posted on my LiveJournal Blog]