To the editor:

Barack Obama has given us the latest great speech in our history. In it he described the genius of America as our ability to improve ourselves. Recognizing perfection can never be reached, America’s single great attribute, he said, is its belief in the process of becoming more perfect.

Neither we nor our laws are static, but evolve in freedom, toward justice. We must contemplate the meaning of that word. It means balance. Injustice is a lack of balance. Freedom defies rigidity; it defies the static tendency of order that leads, for example, to the imbalance of racial prejudice.

Jumping to a different page of the news we find a little story about a 12-year-old girl who has been denied entrance into the national spelling bee. I suspect many of us are offended by an apparent injustice. We are offended that those responsible will not correct what seems a harsh and obvious injustice. We are offended that a rule has been used to create injustice, that a law can be applied so blindly.

Freedom is the ability to choose our own path. We are not governed by law; we create it. We continually re-make law to aid us in the process of forming a “more perfect union.” We are not bound by our past mistakes; we can choose; we can move forward.

William Skepnek,

Lawrence