Every generation finds reason to cast stones at those who came before. It will be no different with generations to come who will find ample cause to cast stones at us.
Maybe we’ll be blamed for horrors yet to come that are of our making today. Maybe global warming will destroy millions of future lives because we would not reign in our excesses. Maybe the future will tripwire the bomb and our failure to rid the world of what we brought kills billions. Maybe the future will see us as flesh-eating monsters that raised, caged, penned and butchered other species, knowing full well they knew terror, felt pain, had families.
I don’t know. I focus on none of those things and likely contribute to all and a dozen others I could mention. Does that mean what I do, what you do, to improve life as we know it in our time, holds little value in the future?
Someday there will be statues to honor some of us for our efforts, for our fights to make things fairer, more just. Should these new heroes be condemned in the future for not seeing the whole picture, recognizing all that is not right, and will so easily and clearly not be right in the eyes of Americans 200 years from now?
I don’t know, but I am sure we will be condemned for any one of a number of reasons where it is claimed we should have known and did nothing, for what those in the future will know as our failures for certain.
I like our Founders, every last one of them. They worked to make the world better, so very much better, including your ability to get the facts and govern for yourselves. And that is something we can help with at VoteSmart.org
Richard Kimball
Vote Smart President
Views expressed in this column are those of Richard Kimball and do not necessarily represent the views of Vote Smart.