Al Mayo: Still We Rise

Three dead at the Boston Marathon. That’s not a headline anyone expected to see. But the fact is, hate and terrorism have reared their ugly heads again and struck the heart of Americana. Traditions like Patriot’s Day in Boston are singularly American. No other place I know of celebrates heritage and lineage like The United States Of America. The marathon, Patriot’s Day, and other regional or national celebrations are part of the very fabric of this country. So when one of them is struck by a frontal assault, it hurts all of us. We all take it personally.

We talk a lot about Republicans and Democrats. Conservatives and Liberals. Tea Partiers, left wingers, right wingers. But it all comes down to one fundamental principle. Freedom. We all have the freedom to BE any of those things, and to disagree with each other–and we certainly do disagree on a lot of things. But when an assault on those freedoms causes death and destruction, Americans rally together more readily and quicker than any other country on this earth. We fall together, and we rise together.

Knock down buildings in New York and you make all of us New Yorkers. Attack us in Boston, and we all become Bostonians. We rise when we fall, and we fall often. Real compassionate human beings are built to fail sometimes, but we try our damnedest to overcome failure and rise again. Most of the time, we succeed in rising, and I have little doubt we will again. So we watch, wait, and yes worry about what happens next.

Whoever did this, whether it’s domestic or overseas terrorists must know they will not succeed in crushing the spirit of our citizens. It has to be in their brain someplace telling them, “This will not work.” Yet, they continue to strike us. The very freedoms we enjoy here sometimes make it possible for those events to happen, and I confess that is a difficult thing to reconcile sometimes in my liberal soul. But despite all of our differences–and the are many in number–still we rise.

We rise, and even soar as Americans because we allow those freedoms to exist and thrive. Yes we will continue to split hairs about how far they should go, but the fundamental truth is that whether far right or far left–we still have more fundamental freedom than any country on earth. For that reason alone, no terrorist will snuff us out. Still we rise.