2010年毕业典礼致辞

雷切尔·麦德 LLD; 5月16日, 2010

雷切尔·麦德, 在当地电台开始她的职业生涯后成为全国知名的政治评论员, 周日澳门葡京博彩软件第132届毕业典礼上的演讲人是谁, 5月16日.

你们所有人都让人印象深刻.

谢谢你们今天邀请我来这里. I know by virtue of the achievement that earned you these seats down front today that you are too smart to take advice from anyone who hasn't earned it; let alone an erstwhile Northampton radio show D.J.

然而，我确实有一个故事要讲，我承认有点模糊.

1900年6月, 自以为是的人, 据说堪萨斯一个讨厌的女人有一个宗教幻象. 她的名字叫凯莉·纳森. 多年以后，当她写自传时，她几乎称自己为圣人, 1900年6月，她在祈祷和哀悼时说了这句话, 哭泣, 试图找到一个更好的基督徒的方法, 她说上帝用清晰的声音对她说话，指示她去摧毁酒馆. 上帝让她离开梅迪辛小屋, 堪萨斯, 然后去基奥瓦, 堪萨斯, 毁掉她在那里找到的所有酒吧, 她做到了.

她冲进了这些世纪之交的酒吧, 这些有长镜子的客厅, 她拿着一块大石头，用石头砸酒瓶——她把这些酒吧间弄得一团糟.

原来Carry Nation对这个很有兴趣. 她以破坏财产和恐吓人民为乐.

她很快就把这当成了一种习惯和事业. 她走遍了全国:首先是堪萨斯，最后是全国，摧毁了酒吧. 她先用了一块石头，然后用了一把斧头. 她用小斧头作为她的象征. 她称自己的酒馆撞击事件为“hatchetations”,这可能是《Carry Nation》最酷的一点:“hatchetations”."

凯莉出售这些小小的锡制斧头别针和筹款纪念品. 你可以在eBay上买到. 我有一个. 不过它看起来像一只拉布里斯. 这是一个很好的想法，但不同.

凯莉国家的筹款实际上是为了她自己，这样她就可以把自己推销成一个杂耍演员, 作为一个“沙龙捣蛋鬼”,她请了一个巡回演出经理来推广她在全国各地举办的一场震撼沙龙的巡回路演.

作为一个对Carry Nation很着迷的人, 在我看来，她基本上是个美国小贩, 只是推销自己. 但她也在宣传自己的事业:节制，禁止饮酒，禁酒. And that campaign worked – she was one of the reigning symbols of the Prohibition movement from when she started smashing saloons in 1900 to when she died in 1911. By 1917, the combined effort of activists like her and the women's temperance union had actually succeeded in passing an anti-booze amendment to the United States Constitution — as if we didn't have other things to do.

不到一年半之后，该法案在国会两院以压倒性优势获得通过, ratified by two-thirds of the states; and, 从1920年开始, 禁酒令这个令人难以置信的愚蠢想法是这个国家的法律——这是一场灾难.

酗酒率上升. 数十家、成百上千家非法饮酒场所相继开业. 私酒商经营黑市终结了所有的黑市. 一种全新的有组织犯罪活动层出不穷.

随着地下犯罪集团利润的激增, this country reached whole new levels of government 腐败的ion that puts anything we've got today to shame — except for maybe the Interior Department of the Bush administration.

It's not about the Bush administration — remember they put the Abramoff guy as the Number Two guy in charge of the Department of Interior and there was that one office where they were snorting meth off the toaster oven and the people who worked in the office regulating the oil industry were actually having affairs with oil industry lobbyists? 也许是布什政府的内政部 可以 竞争.

实际上, 你想想看, 去年夏天的一个早晨，44个人在新泽西州同时因腐败被捕, 然后是罗德·布拉戈耶维奇，好吧，也许我们 可以 想象一下超级腐败的犯罪政府是什么样子. 但在禁酒令时期，情况真的很糟糕.

大萧条时期, the criminal economy that was a side effect of the Carry Nations of the world convincing us to ban booze — that criminal economy was big enough that it crowded out a lot of the real economy. 试图从大萧条中复苏意味着, 在某种程度上, 找到一种不会消失在黑帮经济中的刺激支出方式, 从数量上看，哪个是合法经济的真正竞争者.

当然，我们 do 记住那个时代的一些很酷的东西——飘逸的连衣裙, every drink you've ever had with orange juice because they needed something with a strong flavor to disguise the taste of the disgusting bathtub gin — but basically it was a huge public policy failure.

我再举一个具体的例子来说明这次美国的公共政策是多么的野蛮和愚蠢. 考虑工业酒精. 一种是用于饮用的酒精，另一种是用于溶剂的酒精——外用酒精. 人们非常渴望喝酒，他们有时会喝工业酒精, 或者，从事利润丰厚的私酒行业的人会窃取或窃取工业酒精，然后重新蒸馏，使其隐约可以饮用.

在禁酒令期间，政府决定必须停止这种做法, 他们的天才办法是在工业酒精中下毒. 黛博拉·布鲁姆为Slate杂志写过这篇文章.com最近. 政府把工业酒精加入了煤油之类的东西, 汽油, 苯, 汞盐, 尼古丁, 醚甲醛, 丙酮. 他们会在这些东西里加入已知的毒药，他们知道人们想喝，但人们还是会喝，他们会死. 据估计有10人,000 people may have been killed by government actions in this way during Prohibition when the government decided to discourage people from doing things that people already knew was bad for them but they wanted to do it anyway.

禁酒令在很多方面都很愚蠢. 终于经过了13年的漫长, 愚蠢的年, 它在1933年被废除, 然后我们作为一个国家迅速开始忘记我们曾经这样做过.

我认为重要的是要记住禁酒令因为颁布禁酒令对我们国家来说是一场巨大的灾难, 但这是Carry Nation的个人胜利.

在这个美好的毕业日，我想提出一个假设:个人的成功被高估了.

如果你仔细想想, 当时杰克·阿布拉莫夫让白宫安装了他的受贿装置, 腐败的, 帕齐是内政部的第二号人物，因此导致了从烤面包机里吸食冰毒, 内政部与石油说客上床的氛围, 这是杰克·阿布拉莫夫个人的胜利.

Someone at Yum Brands this year achieved their personal triumph by getting KFC to remove the bun from a cheese and bacon sandwich and replace that bun with pieces of fried chicken — the double-down sandwich-designer's personal triumph.

现任总统突然想出了一个策略，就是采纳政治对手的愿望清单，以便在今年通过一项气候法案, 奥巴马总统, 采用“Drill-Baby-Drill,被华盛顿新闻界称赞为政治和个人的胜利.

有人发明了AMC Gremlin，并让一家汽车公司花了9年时间制造它——这是个人的胜利.

There's a Tennessee businessman who has mass-marketed a legal means of charging 400 percent interest on something called "payday loans" despite laws against usury and loan-sharking in this country. He made so much money off of ripping off Ameri可以s that way that he built himself a full-scale college football stadium with lights and seating and a field house and everything in his backyard for his personal use, 他还雇佣大学橄榄球队在那里踢球，自得其乐, 他把自己标榜为一个伟大的美国人.

阿尔·卡彭出身布鲁克林，白手起家，后来建立了一个庞大的犯罪帝国，在禁酒令时期基本上控制了芝加哥——这是个人的胜利.

所有这些人都梦想着他们的梦想，努力工作，实现他们的梦想.

有些梦是噩梦.

[停下来辨认欢呼]

你还会那样做吗? 是的? 你们的嘘声，太好了，谢谢.

每个人在这样的场合都会说:人生苦短. 可能是. 如果是为了你，我很抱歉. 我希望情况不是这样. But I would caution against believing life is short and to live everyday as if it is your last as if you're ever only going to be roughly the age you are now.

坦率地说，如果一切顺利，生命是漫长的. 所以如果你能给我一些建议，我想说的是，希望生命是漫长的. 做一些你在未来许多年里都喜欢思考和讲述的事情. 做一些你想炫耀的事情.

没有人会向自己的孙子吹嘘自己是毒害全国所有工业酒精的天才之一. 没人会对孙辈吹嘘“谁需要湿地”? Let's-have-a-subdivision-and-a-shipping-可以al-instead" decisions that made New Orleans the tragedy and the distant hope that it is today — and the 40 percent of our nation's wetlands that is Louisiana's beaten, 血迹斑斑的海岸.

没有人最终会向他们的孩子吹嘘他们告诉这个国家我们应该入侵伊拉克，因为, 你知道911吗?, 这应该很容易. 想象一下家族史:“是的, 然后爷爷在电视上说伊拉克战争需要六个星期, 马克斯.“没人想记住爷爷的那些事.

所以我建议, 如果你有选择的话, 不要当爷爷, 不要像祖母那样，只希望自己暂时的个人胜利会被历史遗忘.

从大局来看, 站在22岁左右、40岁左右或62岁左右——Ada Comstockers, 站在你现在毕业的年龄, 寻找属于你自己的深水地平线, 考虑一下你很可能会变老的可能性——每个人都希望你变老. 做一个正确的决定，因为你现在做的事情会在你90岁的时候成为你炫耀的对象.

在没有水晶球的情况下，你如何成为正确决策的一部分? The best way to guess what is going to work out in the future and to figure out what you'll be glad you played a role in is to get smart and get smart fast, 认真对待你所拥有的机会, 继续你的教育，不一定要读研究生, 而是以一种终生的方式, be intellectually and morally rigorous in your own decision-making and expect that the important people in your life do the same if they want to stay important to you.

开枪不只是为了个人的胜利, but for durable achievement to be proud of for life is the difference between winning things and leadership; it's the difference between nationalism and patriotism; it's the difference between running for office and devoting yourself to public service; it's agreeing that you're part of something; taking as your baseline that you will not seek to reach your own goals by stepping on your community; it means coming to terms that your country needs you, 澳门葡京博彩软件2010届毕业生.

在生活和事业中总会有这样的时候，你必须在正直和更多短期诱惑之间做出选择. You will be the press secretary who is asked to lie to the press; you will be the regulator asked to approve the drilling with the Mickey Mouse safety plan; you will be the artist commissioned to make what you suspect is propaganda; the engineer pressed to use the cheaper, unsafe welds; the job appli可以t asked to cross the picket line; the research scientist expected to round to the nearest publishable conclusion; the spouse tempted to cheat; the physician tempted to schill; the staff sergeant asked to keep quiet; the politician confronted with the focus group that proves how well appeals to racism poll in your district; the pundit offered the talking point; the procurement officer offered the kickback.

在短期内，什么能让你走得更远总是很清楚的, 是什么让你出名?, 什么能让你得到老板的职位, 是什么让你当选, 什么使你富有.

但最终，血还是会流出来的.

历史 has a way of not remembering that some of those Iraq War press secretaries had real talent in the White House press room; or that BP and Trans-Ocean had a real talent for drilling down to find oil deeper than anyone else.

如果要在名誉与荣耀之间做出选择，那就选择荣耀. 荣耀总有办法悄悄靠近名望然后偷走它的午餐钱.

生命很可能很长, 放眼未来，以一种你会引以为傲的方式生活. 你会睡得更多. 你会是一个更好的合作伙伴. 你会成为一个更好的妈妈. 你会是一个更好的朋友. 你会成为一个更好的老板, 你也不需要记住任何复杂的谎言来在养老院吹嘘，因为你可以吹嘘你美好生活的真相.

总之，我不会自负到要求你记住这些建议. 不过，我可能会要求你记住Carry Nation. Carry Nation克服重重困难得到了她想要的——这是她努力工作的结果——但这并不意味着鼓舞人心. 这是为了让你担心. 你即将从澳门葡京博彩软件毕业. 你准备得很充分. 你很镇定. 你人脉很广. 你太聪明了. 你已经成功了.

不要为了今天的自己，而是为了在生命的尽头为自己骄傲. 不要为名声，而要为荣耀——学会区别. 不只是为了你自己的生活吗, 而是为了你的国家, 这仍然是, 尽管存在种种挑战和缺陷, 在很多方面都是世界上最好的希望. 这个国家需要你，需要你最好的贡献，需要你最好的判断.

谢谢你邀请我来这里. 谢谢你们的辛勤工作让你们来到这里，请享受这一刻. 为自己感到骄傲. 我们都为你感到非常非常骄傲.