Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

"As we think today about what divides Americans, I think it boils down to the fact that some Americans no longer want to experiment. They want to close the lab down. We've gone far enough into the unknown, making it known, they say; now let's stop--let's even go backward. We were wrong to conduct some of our experiments in liberty, and that's the source of all our problems. Gay people shouldn't be treated equally. Black people shouldn't run the country. Women shouldn't hold high office. Muslims shouldn't be granted habeas corpus.

"Whenever one of those Americans talks about the problem with our country today, they talk about how we should be like we once were, back when white people who defined marriage as one man-one woman and were Protestant veterans built this nation. They feel they are losing their birthright, their legacy.

"But those Americans are wrong. What their ancestors really were was scientists. Experimenters. Radicals who always considered the impossible possible. To define those ancestral Americans as merely white or straight or Christian strips them of their most stunning feature, their near-supernatural qualities of optimism and defiance and willingness to go into the unknown and make it their home, to make the amazing the norm. They defied the status quo. That's how they built America."

-- R. Sós, 2008-11-16

[To Lynn and Pauline, happy birthday, and to all my countrymen (whether you agree with today's quotation or not), a happy and glorious Independence Day!]