Faith in Human Progress: President Obama's Inspiring Words

To hear the GOP Wingnuts and Tea Party screamers tell it, the president of the United States is an anti-American Communist-Fascist-Nazi-Socialist-Muslim who is secretly trying to turn the nation into a dictatorship headed by Himself, the Great Obama.

A lot of these people live right here in Oklahoma, which is a problem since this sort of conspiracy-mongering and paranoia is not only wrong, it's dangerous.

It's also a sign that a lot of people are not paying attention. If they did, they'd be aware of the president's actual words and deeds, many of which give the lie to the silliness and lies of the Right-wing noise machine.

As evidence, we present a short section of the president's remarks yesterday at the Nobel Prize ceremony. We submit that these are not the words of a secret dictator with radical leanings. Instead, they are words that inspire high ideals in Americans and in others:

But we do not have to think that human nature is perfect for us to still believe that the human condition can be perfected. We do not have to live in an idealized world to still reach for those ideals that will make it a better place. The non-violence practiced by men like Gandhi and King may not have been practical or possible in every circumstance, but the love that they preached — their fundamental faith in human progress — that must always be the North Star that guides us on our journey.

For if we lose that faith — if we dismiss it as silly or naïve; if we divorce it from the decisions that we make on issues of war and peace — then we lose what’s best about humanity. We lose our sense of possibility. We lose our moral compass.