I
watched the movie Lincoln on New Years night, and it was inspiring. If you are not familiar, it is a movie based
on Abraham Lincoln working towards getting the thirteenth amendment of the
United States Constitution passed. That amendment
says the following:
Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been
duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to
their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
A few thoughts came to me as I watched…
The fact that people could ever think
slavery was a just institution is so foreign from my inner feelings and
thoughts that I cannot comprehend it. I
have a knack for understanding separate sides of an argument. Whether I agree with one’s opinion or not, I usually
can empathize or at least sympathize with their argument. When it comes to this issue I cannot. How one can think another human being is less
of a person than themselves is purely reprehensible and irrational.
This movie also documented the process
of making this bill a law and went into depth about how this process was achieved
as they moved along. It made me think of
current situations. Abolishing slavery
was a monumental event. Monumental
events never seem to happen in the political process anymore. Congress can’t even do their simple mandated
duty to pass a budget; much less get anything else done. It made me think the system is broken. We hold the amendments as gospel, but rooted
in the word amendment is the ability to change something that may not be
relevant anymore; times change, life changes.
Furthermore, maybe what we think of as a great equalizer, the system of
checks and balances, is skewed. Why do
members of the House of Representatives, who at most, were elected by 300 times
less people than the President of the United States, have the ability to hold
up a bill? The largest populous that is
represented in the House is one million people for the at-large state of
Montana. There are three hundred million
people in United States. Should that one
Representative, who was elected by a populous of one million have the ability
to be a deciding vote or more influentially, the ability to filibuster a bill
he or she does not agree with?
Lastly, this movie made me look
within. I often have grandiose thoughts
of accomplishing feats that could change the world for the better. However, none of these are likely to
occur. It’s a sad truth that many of us
have to deal with; we are merely a minor part of this big world. So as yesterday was New Years Day, I
challenge everyone to make this resolution for 2013 and beyond. You may not have the ability to change the
world as a whole, but you can change the world one person at a time. Be a kinder person, a more thoughtful
person. Help people who need it and don’t
always do things for selfish reasons. My
grandmother, Evelyn Fox, had seven children and countless grandchildren. With all of those people that looked to her
for kindness or an ear, she had the amazing capability to make the person she
was talking to feel like they were the most important person in the world right
at that moment. I strive for that
ability. I may not be able to pass a bill that will change the course of history. I may never do anything that will be written
in textbooks that children will learn in school. But I WILL influence this
world, one person at a time. Like Tupac
Amaru Shakur once said: “I’m not saying I’m gonna change the world, but I
guarantee that I will spark the brain that will change the world.”
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