More than hope (#1248)

From an idea springs thought and action. In our world today hope has inspired some to step up and counter forces that traditionally quash hope as a rule. There have been great achievements that hope has inspired for many in generations preceding our's now. Our short but enduring national evolution has been chock full of examples that reached out and above what at first seemed difficult to impossible. We know hope is successful in bringing about our better natures in extraordinary ways but recently hope has been elusive in areas of just mundane progress. Our country has been at a crossroads where current and recently past economic/political theory has allowed for power and rule to shift from the majority, with minority compromise, to a system where the minority disregards the conventions of rule and instead work to dictate to the majority it's agenda, increasingly through it's powerful economic grip. Traditionally we are democratic in political foundation and in our policy formation, yet we have veered from this normal course and opened up a fissure that allows for the extreme of falsity and abuse to sway opinion as a right to be protected. We have gone so far in our defense of "free speech" that we are now unable to legislate the difference between the truth and out and out lies. Perhaps my hope is that we can recognize the error of putting the right to lie on the same footing with the right to know the truth. Hope has to have the truth of a thing at it's core but if we are left with lies masquerading as truth, then we need more than hope to right what is obviously wrong.