Posted: 05/02/07

The way forward

Jake Dubuque | contributing columnist
jdubuque@smcvt.edu

I suppose it was inevitable that I would eventually arrive at my last column for the Echo and I suppose it was also inevitable that my last column would look to the future. I have great faith though that the spirit of this column will go on and that there will be another person willing to take up the torch, to think outside of the box, to criticize those that need it and to offer uncharacteristic solutions to the many complex issues on campus. There are many students who could do this and I hope that one will step forward and be willing to say what needs to be said and not be afraid of how people will react.

As I look around at this community, at my friends and peers, I have faith that our generation is capable of solving many of the world’s problems that have thus far eluded older generations. We have grown up in an era after the fall of Communism, after the fall of Facism, after the fall of racism, after the fall of male superiority. The sons and daughters of today’s America have lived in a society where personal liberty and open-mindedness is the norm. Free trade, free communication and the opportunity to travel anywhere in the world will define our generation as the most inclusive and integrated in history. We do not need to rely on the paradigms of history to forge a better future.

Our generation is destined for greatness, but before that future can be realized, we must first overcome the limitation of relativism. If freedom and liberty and equality of opportunity are the pinnacle of human existence, than the philosophy of relativism is the dark abyss that will engulf those values. It is not acceptable for us to cherish the idea that women are equal to men, but allow them to be subjugated throughout the world. It is not enough for us to cherish religious freedom here, but accept intolerance and persecution abroad. It is abhorrent for us to champion the cause of our own representative government but refuse to support the cause of representative government for the oppressed citizens of dictatorships.

Life itself is something that is not relative. We must respect it, protect it, and increase the quality of it; not just for ourselves, but for all of humanity. Our generation will be the one who overcomes the partisan nature of abortion by working to create a world where every baby is welcomed into life. We will end the death penalty not because of the flaws of human justice, but because our overwhelming respect for life demands that we act better than criminals. And we will work to promote economic development, particularly among the poor in America and throughout the world, so that each generation has a better quality of life than our own.

This philosophy of life is absolute and grounded in both the religious and secular traditions of human rights. It is a philosophy that transcends individuals while still protecting their fundamental rights and that is why it will succeed.

Our generation has the opportunity and the potential to become one of the greatest – but it will demand hard work, perseverance, and sacrifice. We must not give up on our dedication to a philosophy of life when it meets resistance. When suicide bombers smash planes into our tallest buildings, we must defend life. When terrorists bomb our mass transportation network, we must defend life. When ethnocentric leaders commit genocide, we must defend life. For when we defend the lives of others, we preserve the intrinsic value of humanity.

Generations of Americans have labored to provide us with an environment of freedom, tolerance and prosperity; but I worry that they will also corrupt us with the baggage of their history — specifically in Iraq. When the leader of the Senate celebrates that the war in Iraq is lost and that his party will pick up political seats because of it, we should all be concerned that the petty considerations of the present leaders will burden our generation with their failures. Whatever our opinion of the war to this point — let us now acknowledge that the stakes of this war are huge. If current leaders fail to allow the infant Iraqi democracy to mature, they will retard the progress of life for generations in that region and it will have consequences for all of humanity.

I hope that our generation chooses life and that our way forward is in defense of it. I hope that we do not choose the shortcut to failure by ‘protecting our own lives’ and refuse to stop genocide in Sudan, leave Iraq to the mercy of sectarian murder, or enable the dictatorship of North Korea to continue to starve its people. In the tradition of St. Michael, we must be defenders of our faith in life. That is my charge to the senior class and our generation.

Thank you to this community; to my friends, the faculty, and the Echo for the best four years of my life. Never underestimate your self-worth and the impact that you have on others and on the very fabric of humanity. God Bless.