While I deeply respect and honor all viewpoints, right now some prospective seems to be in order.
When I was a kid in eighth grade, we had a teacher at our well-worn urban schoolhouse who was a prim and proper suburbanite and a staunch Republican. We knew her affiliation because during the hotly contested 1960 campaign she sported a Nixon button on her overcoat. Now, she never, ever expressed her political views in the classroom. That would have crossed a line and she always followed the rules.
But after one of the closest elections in history was over and the results were in, a student asked her if she was disappointed at how things had turned out. "The election's over," she answered. "The people have spoken. Kennedy won. He's my president now," she added "and I respect him as the President of the United States and wish him well."
I never forgot that. It impressed me. And not just because she was a good sport and recognized that the other team had won and her team lost. No, it impressed me because this was more than a game. This was democracy at work. This outcome had real consequences for all of us -- for our city, our state, for the nation and the world. It mattered in people's everyday lives.
And she recognized this and she was acting as a good citizen. She was showing, as Benjamin Franklin said that there are times when "we must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately." I know that times have changed. But, during a week like this, I really don't think that's too much to ask.
God Bless America!
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