Barack Obama is going to be the next president of the United States. The American people are basically good, decent human beings. We (Americans) have been working hard for years to teach our children that Truth, Justice, and the American Way with Liberty and Freedom for All are not just words written on paper or phrases thrown about by politicians, but are real Classes in the NameSpace of the United States of American. And our children have internalized these ideas, they have instantiated these classes as Objects (the Barack Obama object). (For the non-programmers out there, our kids got the message.)
Barack Obama represents the culimination of those teachings. Good, bad, or indifferent, he and his campaign are the result of the years of teaching our children that, in America, anyone can be president, as long as they meet certain minimum age requirements.
He, indeed, is what we (Americans) have been waiting for. Proof that we are good, freedom loving, justice seeking citizens of the finest example of civilization in the history of man.
He is not a man any more, he is an instantiation of the Class America_Hope_Dream which inherits the abstract classes Freedom, Justice, Liberty_for_All.
Most of the commenters on this blog are experienced, mature (or in my case just plain old). They have courted and endured the winds of adversity, have created and lost businesses, raised families, seen and in some cases participated in the rise and fall of governments, political ideas and campaigns. In some cases they had to make life and death decisions, and by the virtue of still being here to commit their thoughts to cyberspace, they survived, more or less intact. They still believe and strongly support the American virtues, but at the same time they “keep their powder dry”.
We had to pick up the pieces of shattered hopes and dreams and rebuild more realistic lifes for ourselves. We recognize that Truth, Justice and the American way have to be tempered with judgement, experience, firm belief in our convictions and the ability to adapt to a changing environment and above all, humor.
Our children will also learn. It will probably be painful. It was for us.
