“When it can be said by any country in the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them, my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars, the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive, the rational world is my friend because I am the friend of happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and government. Independence is my happiness, the world is my country and my religion is to do good.”  Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man.

I feel hope tonight for the country my daughter and wife and granddaughter will live in after I am gone.

I am not a creature of the left or right, I believe I think for myself on different issues in different ways, my own way, for better worse. But I was up late watching the news Tuesday night, and I am hopeful.

I do not label myself or let other people label me. I see very clearly that our two political parties have failed ordinary people, working people.

They both have a lot to prove to people who have lost their trust and faith in our democracy.

But tonight’s election in Alabama makes me hopeful.

That polarized people will rise above their programmers and can still vote their conscience. I hope they have shattered a cycle in which we have come to hate and demonize, and even criminalize, our political leaders. In our democracy, we are supposed to vote for the best candidate, we are not robots pulling pre-determined switches.

That Americans, even those angry and disappointed, will reject hate as a political choice and reject bigots and mindless rage.

I am hopeful that we will honor our Fathers and turn away from becoming a religious nation, rather than an open and secular one.

I can vote for a Republican who makes sense to me, or a Democrat who makes sense to me, that is how our system is supposed to work.

I think the construct of two ideologies, a left and a right, is poison, the death of the citizen mind. In Alabama, the political mind seems to have given rebirth to itself. We don’t have to vote for stupid and vicious  and hypocritical people just because they carry one label or another.

I am hopeful that women are finally gaining the high political ground and holding on to their new power. I am hopeful they are making their voices heard and standing in their truth. Nothing will change the world more than that, not a million politicians of the left or the right making promises they can’t keep.

I am hopeful that African-Americans, refugees and immigrants will rise up and vote the way they did in Alabama and stand up to the tidal wave of bigotry that has engulfed them in the past two years. Last night they are sending a very strong message to the morally bankrupt political opportunists who have been exploiting them for gain and power.

Every day, we are seeing that something important is happening to the women of America, they are seizing power in the most democratic of ways, they may just save our country from itself. So I go to bed hopeful tonight.

I am not a political analyst publishing a political blog – there are so many people who do that.

My politics are not an argument for other people, they are personal expression of my own values. My own values were ratified tonight, that has given me hope and strength. I was asleep and lazy, but i am paying attention now.

I am hopeful that I am finally learning how to be a citizen, and pay attention, and vote my conscience, and practice what I preach, rather than argue about it.

If there had to be trouble, I am grateful that it came in my day, so that my wife and child and grandchild might have peace.

Tonight, on the eve of the Christmas holidays, I feel something good has happened, something positive. I have hope. Independence is my happiness and my religion is to do good.