BY KRISTY YANG, MILWAUKEE COUNTY CIRCUIT JUDGE
My friend the late Todd Robert Murphy once said, “The country’s founding fathers acknowledged the imperfections of the union and the desire to become better. We are better, better than any country in the world by a long shot.”
I have lived in and traveled to other parts of the world, and what I observed is this: In few places are democracy and hope so tightly bound that one seems to breathe life into the other. Even as the pendulum continues to swing, pulled by politics, strained by division and tempered by the limits of the tolerance of the American people, something endures. American democracy still resembles hope. That democracy aspires; it leans forward.
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That aspiration glows in literal and figurative symbols, both grand and ordinary. It glimmers in the torch held by the Statue of Liberty, sparks in the risky and bold idea launched into business reality and endures in the courage to exercise one’s freedom of speech even when there may be costs associated with it. Across this vast nation, individuals still hold on to hope of a better life, of a better tomorrow, similar to the way my parents, siblings and I steadfastly held on to hope when we immigrated to the United States in 1987.
