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Mr. President, it is a privilege
in this 50th anniversary year
to address the graduates
and those gathered around them.
You are obligated
to look toward the next 50,
but in celebrating the past it is
appropriate for you
to display some relics
from the past, so here I am.
This summer our son-in-law became an
American citizen.
He put on his new suit and went
to a Chicago court to take his oath.
The judge was eloquent
and he found himself more
emotionally moved than he expected.
Our family converged
on our house a week later
to honor him.
Before dinner we sat down together
to read from the Declaration
of Independence
and the Constitution.
Listen to these words:
"We hold these truths
to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal
and endowed by their Creator
with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness -
that to secure these rights,
governments are instituted among
men, deriving their powers
from the consent of the governed.
We closed with the First Amendment:
"Congress shall make no law
respecting an establishment
of a religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof, or abridging the freedom
of speech or of the press;
or the right of the people peaceably
to assemble and to petition the
government for a redress
of grievances."
Some of us became teary-eyed hearing
again the declaration of our rights
and the protection of them.
When I reflected
after the strong emotions hearing
these words had on all of us,
as we welcomed our family member
into the great family
of American citizens,
I thought to myself the Declaration
of Independence
and the Constitution make
common sense.
By the late 18th century the
intellectual ferment
of the Enlightenment
and the political
and religious experiences
on the European continent
and in Great Britain had come
together in the minds of people
who lived along the eastern seaboard
of North America.
In a little over two decades they
fought for and forged a new covenant
that provided all individuals
with more liberty, freedom
and opportunity
than had ever been experienced.
It shook the world
and it all made sense.
In 1776 an English immigrant
journalist, Thomas Paine
in Philadelphia,
published a pamphlet,
"Common Sense,"
that stirred the colonists.
It made a compelling case
for America against the tyrannies
of Britain.
John Adams and Benjamin Franklin,
a former friend,
thought him a rabble-rouser,
but I think he put some fire
in Thomas Jefferson's belly.
Whatever the circumstances then,
the circumstances now made me think
the turmoil in our politics
and foreign policy now require a
dose of common sense;
just as the times
at our nation's birth required it.
Hence the title of these remarks,
and a compliment to Thomas Paine,
whose title I have plagiarized.
The application
of common sense begins at the level
of the individual.
A large number
of people must practice it if it is
to be made manifest in society
and the body politic.
Sometimes in our national life
when we didn't know where to turn,
or when we were polarized
to the point of near destruction,
or in economic peril and threatened
from without,
a beleaguered hero made the right
decisions and led us
to sensible outcomes.
George Washington at the beginning,
Abraham Lincoln
when we nearly destroyed what we
had, and Franklin Roosevelt
when democracy itself
was threatened.
Contemplating these things in depth,
I searched for my anchors
of common sense, and found them
in the words
of three people whose lives I have
studied all my adult life.
On November 11, 1947,
Winston Churchill said in the House
of Commons, "It has been said
that democracy is the worst form
of government except all those other
forms that have been tried
from time to time."
He tells me democracy doesn't always
produce good results,
he implies that liberty isn't
forever unless we discipline
ourselves to protect it.
He implies keeping it may
require sacrifice.
The great hall of Parliament
where these words were uttered
stands as a symbol
of the essential ingredients
of democracy; the majority prevails,
the minority has protected rights,
and compromise is
of ultimate necessity
to making it work.
It all makes sense to me,
but the way we practice it sometimes
grinds me.
Steven Cobert, the humorist,
has given us a new word born
out of the sound bite ads
of the recent campaign.
It is truthiness.
Truthiness describes an ad
that takes a true fact,
presents it out of context,
and the result is an untruth;
commonly called a lie.
What am I to do
about the gutter politics?
First, is to understand
that in other forms truthiness has
been practiced long before the word
was coined.
Second, is to stay engaged
in politics.
Third, don't stoop
to gutter politics myself.
Fourth, keep myself well informed
about issues - after all,
we are entering an uncharted time
of global transformation,
the effects of which will reach
every home in America.
So my voice and my vote should
reflect information,
thought and reason.
Around 2,000 years ago Jesus said,
"Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with what judgment you judge,
you shall be judged.
And whatever measure you deal
out to others will be dealt back
to you."
If you're nasty, you get nasty back.
If you condemn you get condemnation.
He does not say don't make
judgments, but He is issuing
a warning.
If you get into mudslinging
and give those
who oppose you no quarter,
you may find you are contributing
to an unredeemable human situation.
He does not say don't fight
for what you believe,
but He says how you fight may be
as important to right living
as your objective.
He is implying
that we really do not have the right
to judge others
because our human condition does not
include the ability to do so.
We are in our own skin;
we cannot completely get
into another's.
Listening to some
of the recent political campaign
rhetoric you might think final
pronouncements
on people are ours to make.
I yearn for a time
when views are put forth
in a reasonable manner
and voters make their decisions
without the confusion created
by truthiness and condemnation.
The misinterpretation
and noise emanating
from candidates often reflects the
confusion among the electorate.
When we have not understood what is
happening, and it is different to do
so in a world that is a period
of exhilarated change,
we are likely to vote in a state
of aroused emotions or not at all.
But I know, too,
that many have made their judgments
as best they can
and voted their convictions.
The majority rules but what
if there is not a clear majority?
How does the body politic function?
Compromise?
That requires giving
up some judging.
In my public
and personal life I have tried
to incorporate the judging concept
Jesus spoke to his followers
on the mount.
It is hard, very hard.
But it makes sense to me.
Abraham Lincoln had just been
re-elected; the bitter war
with its hatred
and deaths was drawing to a close.
No president before
or since has been demonized more
than he, and what did he say
at this awesome and terrible time
from the inaugural platform
of the new capital?
"With malice toward none,
with charity for all,
with firmness in the right
as God gives us to see the right,
let us strive
on to finish the work we are in,
to bind up the nation's wounds ...
to do all which may achieve
and cherish a just
and lasting peace among ourselves,
and all nations."
Despite all the ensuing injustices,
especially to Black Americans,
the post-war generations captured
enough of Lincoln's spirit to bind
up wounds and let those
who had fallen away come back
into the light of liberty as equals
as the Declaration defined
and the Constitution protected.
I have friends who say,
"I hate Obama."
I have friends who said,
"I hate Bush."
I feel uncomfortable when I hear
such expressions.
I have no problem with disagreeing
with the policies and decisions
of Obama and Bush.
Our first generation
of Americans gave us
that opportunity and right.
But hatred carries malice,
and malice creates hardness,
and hardness diminishes our capacity
to make democracy function
in the best interests of all.
This beleaguered president
about to be assassinated,
through the trials
of his personal life
and his presidency,
was given spiritual insight
that guided us then
and should guide us now.
It makes common sense.
A woman asked Benjamin Franklin
as he was walking on the street
at the close
of the constitutional convention.
"What have you created sitting there
in secret for so many months?"
"A Republic," he replied.
"If you can keep it?"
The traditional commencement address
is an obstacle on the way
to the business of the day.
Since most could easily forgo it,
and graduates are not seeking advice
at this event,
I used my preparation time
to reflect on where I am
as a citizen at this stage
of my life, and how my public
and personal beliefs coincide.
The only advice I will give is
that you do the same periodically.
In September,
the Grand Rapids Symphony opened its
concert season
with a stirring rendition of the
"Star Spangled Banner."
I felt it from the "top of my head
to the tip of my toes."
I am a patriotic guy.
I am moved when it is played
at every ballgame I attend.
I don't think there is an ounce
of chauvinism in my patriotism.
My patriotism flows from gratitude:
gratitude that I was born at a time
after all the thinkers
and common citizens
of several places had awakened the
spirit of liberty
and defined democracy
where liberty flourishes.
I live in the land of the free
and the home of the brave,
and so do you.
Let's keep it that way.