One said, to paraphrase, if it was John McCain (being sworn in) nothing would be said. Accept it and be quiet!
There were one or two others in the same vein.
Part of me wanted to laugh, but mostly, I wanted to seek out these people and point out that they, in their close-mindedness and intolerance, were committing the very same mistakes that they likely found so deplorable in their conservative counterparts.
To me, freedom and democracy is not about majority rule or the will or the masses. To me, freedom and democracy is exactly the opposite: it is, at its very core, dissent and disagreement, and about the small voices little heard and often ignored, calling out, joining together, becoming louder and finally reaching such a volume that they can no longer be ignored.
Democracy is dissent, in very real terms, and if we do not embrace it and respect it, then it is we--whether we are liberal, conservative or moderate--and not those who dissent, who betray and corrupt the American ideal. We need not agree with them. We need not believe in their values--we may, in fact, find them abhorrent. But in wishing them silent we cheat ourselves and our nation from learning and from the freedom of the imagination.
And, as a character I once played in the musical 1776 said, "I never saw anything so dangerous that it cannot be talked about."
I admit, it is tempting to shout out at some of those who, in their prejudices and bigotry, want to inflict pain with words. It is tempting to want them silenced in the same we many people I know have felt silenced in the past decade or so--to "give them a taste of their own medicine."
But that would only serve as self-justification of their prejudice and their hatred, and would make me like them. Some of us want to view this day as a new one with new light and new potential.
I want to see it as such.
But in doing so, we cannot forget that part of the new day includes change from the way things have been, and it must include a new tolerance and a new acceptance of all--not just those who agree with us.
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