Thom Hartmann likes to say that democracy is in the American DNA now and that we'll never tolerate anything less.

I like to think he's right.

My faith in us, not only as Americans, but as humans, is perhaps misplaced. I think some people believe it is--that we're rightfully doomed and our fate will be exactly what we deserve. I don't get the self-loathing, to be honest. Yes, we've made some terrible mistakes, but for all our weaknesses, greed, and selfishness, there is a spark of something majestic in us as well. Something transcendent, something that lifts us up above the pettiness that suffuses so much of our history as a race.

And I like think we have a destiny beyond ultimate self-destruction, that we can make a fate for ourselves far beyond the tool-using apes with no purpose other than falling on our collective face. We're curious monkeys, with a fierce desire to know all there is to know, even if it IS out of reach. In some ways that's a dangerous thing, but it might well be our salvation as well.

I think those who think like Bush and company greatly underestimate us as well. They think we're all as petty and fearful as they are--certain that everyone not precisely like ourselves mean us harm.

On one hand we have the people who believe it's our destiny to destroy ourselves because their God says we will, and, on the other, we have those who think it's our destiny to destroy ourselves because we are young and foolish monkeys and we play with things beyond our understanding.

I, personally, will take the third path. We will NOT destroy ourselves and, in the end, we will confront the truth of our past, and our evolution, and find a way to move beyond it. It may take a trip to the edge, and a long stare into the depths of oblivion, but we will pull ourselves back from that precipice and move forward together into a spectacular future the likes of which few men and women have ever contemplated.

I can only pity those who seem to hunger for our doom. Those who think we are sinners by nature, or that our dark natures outweigh the light that also resides within us. We argue with such great passion about freedom, and justice, and hope, and yet we condemn ourselves often in the same breath as creatures not worthy of being saved, or saving ourselves.

No, we do not have time for tyrants, for power-mad dictators wrapped in visions of their own glory. We have things to do and places to go, and a planet to save. A future to forge, reaching beyond our limitations toward a place of infinite possibilities.

Do not despair for our follies. Exalt in our potential. One will win out in the end.

I'm betting on the latter.