When Merely Stating the Ideas Obama Put Forth Would Have Gotten You Killed

Excellent inauguration yesterday. Say what you will about American politics but we’ve kept this democracy going for 200+ years, without a single violent handover or uprising. We call it the “grand experiment”, and boy is it frustrating living in this system but when they get the pomp and circumstance going (something our government probably does less than most) it does make me feel good to be an american.

We’ve come a long way baby. Civil rights, in the form of women’s rights, gay rights, and the rights of the sick and impoverished to get care, took focus in the speech. Delivered by the first president of African descent 50 years after African-American descendants of slaves earned the right to vote, on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, drove the point home.

Here’s an excellent article summarizing this point: In 2013, our half-black president addressed the nation and referenced the civil war and the african-american civil struggle, updating it to include the gay rights struggle and the gender pay equality struggle.

There was a time in this country not so long ago when simply saying the same words as the president would have gotten you killed. A toast to progress!