I love America.
I have a pretty extraordinary week ahead of me, and it makes my patriotism well up like a spring.
On Saturday, I will present a three-hour program on American institutions, civil rights and our electoral process to a delegation of Russian college students and young professionals. This is my second year to address a delegations through the Open World Forum, a project of the Library of Congress. I get to talk with these students, all of whom were born in the Soviet Union, about the Revolution, the Constitution, amending the constitution and the electoral college. This fires me up, I mean, like an SEC football game.
(And to my friends who might be worried that I'll promote a certain candiate to the impressionable young Russians, I will not endorse a candidate or party in the discussion. Even so, their next stop after my lecture is Eastdale Mall and Wal-Mart. They'll be just fine.)
As a part of that program, I plan to remark about the extraordinary phenomenon of peaceful transfers of power from one party to another, governed by the Rule of Law and a social compact that instills confidence in losers. Then, on Tuesday, we actually get to see it happen. Of course, we might not transfer power between parties, although I suspect we might, but even so, to see one governor relinquish power to another because the Law says so, to see the people engage in a process and acquiese to the outcome, peacefully and confidently, is a mighty thing to behold.
Thursday, I will travel to our nation's capital with some colleagues on school business. There, I intend to run to the White House and do a lap around Lafayette Square and the Ellipse, first, because I'm American and it's my house and I can, second, because I want to offer a prayer of blessing on the Next Occupant. He'll need it.
Last, I will spend a night in the Shenandoah Valley with some of my best friends in the whole, wide world. I hope that we raise a glass to our preferred candidate and can celebrate half-a-lifetime, so far, of political evolution with each other.
God has blessed America. May He continue to do so.
On Saturday, I will present a three-hour program on American institutions, civil rights and our electoral process to a delegation of Russian college students and young professionals. This is my second year to address a delegations through the Open World Forum, a project of the Library of Congress. I get to talk with these students, all of whom were born in the Soviet Union, about the Revolution, the Constitution, amending the constitution and the electoral college. This fires me up, I mean, like an SEC football game.
(And to my friends who might be worried that I'll promote a certain candiate to the impressionable young Russians, I will not endorse a candidate or party in the discussion. Even so, their next stop after my lecture is Eastdale Mall and Wal-Mart. They'll be just fine.)
As a part of that program, I plan to remark about the extraordinary phenomenon of peaceful transfers of power from one party to another, governed by the Rule of Law and a social compact that instills confidence in losers. Then, on Tuesday, we actually get to see it happen. Of course, we might not transfer power between parties, although I suspect we might, but even so, to see one governor relinquish power to another because the Law says so, to see the people engage in a process and acquiese to the outcome, peacefully and confidently, is a mighty thing to behold.
Thursday, I will travel to our nation's capital with some colleagues on school business. There, I intend to run to the White House and do a lap around Lafayette Square and the Ellipse, first, because I'm American and it's my house and I can, second, because I want to offer a prayer of blessing on the Next Occupant. He'll need it.
Last, I will spend a night in the Shenandoah Valley with some of my best friends in the whole, wide world. I hope that we raise a glass to our preferred candidate and can celebrate half-a-lifetime, so far, of political evolution with each other.
God has blessed America. May He continue to do so.
posted by JRB at 12:08 PM
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