7. Medal of Freedom

In which the President presents a Medal and Supergirl makes a vow.

Cat Grant met Dr. Danvers, Alex and Hank in the lobby of the hotel at 3:30.

"I have the limo waiting. Let's go."

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At the Capitol, the Secret Service was doing something new. Normally, half the assigned team would be watching the perimeter while the other half would be watching for the President's arrival. This time, only one-third watched for the President's arrival, one-third watched the perimeter, and the remaining agents were looking upwards.

At 3:45 exactly, as the Presidential Motorcade was easing to a stop at the House steps, Supergirl touched down on the top step.

The President and her civilian aide got out of the lead SUV and came up the steps, surrounded by the usual Secret Service people.

"Hello, Supergirl, thank you for coming."

"You're welcome, Madam President.

"Here's how it works: we go to a room next door to the Speaker's office where we make any final preparations and then one of his aides comes to get us."

"That's fine." The group walked into the Capitol. As they arrived in the waiting room, the President turned to Supergirl.

"You don't seem to have any notes or an iPad with you, do you have a USB stick for the teleprompter?"

"I have what most people call a photographic memory," Supergirl replied. "I'm also accustomed to public speaking. But I do have a cell phone in my boot holster and it has my text if I want to check it."

A few minutes later the Speaker's aide knocked on the door. "It's time," he said.

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It was one minute to four as the Speaker rose and struck his gavel three times. "The House will be in order," he announced.

As the members took their seats with Senators standing against the walls, the Doorkeeper of the House made the traditional announcement with one difference, "Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States . . . and Supergirl."

His announcement was drowned by a great roar of applause and cheers that were much louder than usual and lasted far longer. But this time the applause and the cheers were not for the President, but for the young woman in blue and red who preceded her.

As the applause finally died, the President spoke, "Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I enjoy what is unquestionably the greatest privilege that has fallen to the lot of any President in our country's history. It is the privilege of introducing to you and to the House a woman who is truly unique, who arrived in our country as a child in what I can only call a miraculous fashion, as a refugee from another planet. She was first fostered, and then adopted by a fine American family. Since entering public life, she has persistently offered her skills and abilities in the service of those who need her help, despite enduring many attacks from criminals from our own Earth, her own and other planets, not to mention repeated attacks from Americans who feared the damage her powers might do. Most recently, as you know, she defeated the Kryptonian criminals who came perilously close to killing every human being on earth in the greatest attempted genocide this planet has ever seen. While reading Director Henshaw's full report on the matter, I learned that one of those criminals was our guest's uncle and that he had invited her to join his group. Not only did she spurn that invitation, in the final, climactic attack she personally fought and defeated that uncle in single combat – to the death. In addition, she then risked her life by carrying the Kryptonian headquarters – a space station with an estimated weight of one million tons – into space and sending it into an orbit that will take it far away from earth, all without knowing whether she could return safely. By that action, she singlehandedly saved the lives of every single person on this planet, including you and me. Consequently, it is fitting and right to honor this young woman, known to us as Supergirl, with the nation's highest civilian award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom with Distinction."

A second roar of applause filled the air and it did not die for a long time. When it did, the President glanced at Supergirl, who stood at attention as the medal was placed around her neck.

As the Girl of Steel quietly said,"Thank you, Madam President," the President stepped back.

The Speaker rose and spoke again, "And now, Supergirl, the floor is yours."

In the public gallery, Alex and her mother grabbed each other's hands: Kara had said nothing about this. A few seats over, Hank Henshaw, who knew what was coming, thought, "Don't blow it, Supergirl" as did Cat Grant in the press box. Kiera had asked her to help work on her speech.

But Supergirl was speaking now, and the House was silent:

"Thank you, Mr. Speaker and Members of the House for the privilege of addressing you today."

For the next few seconds, there was silence as Supergirl looked around the room.

"Madam President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the House, Mr. Vice-President, Senators, Distinguished Guests, Ladies, and Gentlemen."

"It is a high honor to receive this award. I promise you that I will do all I can to be worthy of it."

"The President has described my arrival on earth as 'miraculous', taking the word in the sense of an extremely improbable coincidence. In fact, many such "miracles" were involved. Not only did my parents have the means to send their child on an interstellar journey, there was also a suitable planet within reach that was capable of supporting Kryptonian life as well as its' own life forms."

"Another miracle I must mention is that humans and Kryptonians share sentience and self-awareness. Humans and Kryptonians are both born into a world we did not ask to come to, we must all learn to build our lives in it, we must all cope with problems, illnesses, accidents, tragedies and active evil as well as our own weaknesses and our need to learn wisdom. And in the long run, we will all die. In short, in all essentials, Kryptonians share equally in the human condition."

"The Kryptonian year was essentially the same as an earth year, and when I left Krypton, I had just turned thirteen. My ship was almost launched too late, however, and it was caught and knocked off course by the blast wave when the planet exploded. What happened next, I can't be sure of, but it seems that I spent several years in a form of suspended animation. For before I left, I saw my cousin, then a baby, sent on his way to earth in another ship only a few minutes before my own was launched. But he arrived here as a baby, grew up here and then served as Superman for five years before my own arrival. When I arrived, approximately twenty-five years after Krypton's destruction, I was still physiologically thirteen years old, So, as you can see, the next "miracle" was that my ship and I somehow survived and arrived on earth at all."

"The fifth "miracle" is that the physiology of human beings and Kryptonians is essentially identical. And that identity goes deeper that simple appearance. If I were to walk into a doctor's examination room today for any non-invasive examination, she would see that some of my vitals vary a little from the human averages, but she would never suspect that her patient was not an earth-born human. That is a tremendous blessing. I can build and live my life here, not as a Kryptonian outsider to human society and culture, but as someone just like you."

"Another miracle was the family that adopted me upon my arrival. As you may know, Superman met my ship as it landed and brought me to some people he knew to have me checked out. From the first moment that they saw me, however, that family took me in and they have loved me wholeheartedly as their own daughter and sister ever since. And while these truly extraordinary people also deserve your gratitude – for I would never have taken on the role of Supergirl without their love and support – it is, unfortunately, necessary that they remain anonymous today. So I will only say that I am deeply grateful for their love and their care throughout my years here. Thanks to them, I have seen human family life at its best and I was able to observe that it is essentially identical to the love that bound the strong Kryptonian families I grew up with. In addition, I found myself benefiting from a fine education, which was an ideal position to investigate human views on morality, ethics and civics, subjects of deep interest to me ever since my earliest years on Krypton, where my mother served as the Chief Judicator of the High Council, a position which was the Kryptonian counterpart to that of the Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court."

"As I investigated human views of ethics and morality I found a great deal of commonality between the moral system of Krypton and the various moral systems of Earth. In fact, almost every moral axiom of Earth had its Kryptonian counterpart. Many can even be translated directly on a word for word basis."

"I'd like to focus on one of those axioms for a moment. The Chinese sage Confucius gave you, 'Never do to others what you would not like them to do to you' and the Rabbi, Hillel the Elder, set forth its Jewish counterpart: 'that which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow.'"

"This axiom is important for two reasons. First, it undergirds the highest goal of civil ethics. Under American political theory, aside from achieving required national goals such as winning a war, the state's primary justification for interfering with a citizen's liberty is to prevent, minimize and punish human wrongdoing against one's fellows. The second reason I am reflecting on this axiom is that the Hebrew version of it directly translates into Kryptonese. That Kryptonese axiom, however, adds something more; it adds a reason for refraining from doing something hateful to ones' fellow Kryptonians. And that reason, the Kryptonese phrase 'el mayara sin,' may be translated like this: 'for we are stronger together.'"

"That clause, 'we are stronger together,' had a tremendous impact and significance in Kryptonian history, ethics, and civics. Historically, Krypton's people began and continued for many centuries as a group of warring tribes until one leader began a campaign to convince all the tribes that we would do better together. 'El mayara,' was his slogan. His campaign took almost a quarter of a century, but in the end, all the tribes came together. The visionary was proved correct: once my ancestors learned to work together, there was a great, planet-wide, increase in prosperity and happiness. That leader, the first Zor-El, was my distant ancestor and over the running centuries that followed, his descendants, the House of El, consistently played leading roles in government, the judiciary and, the sciences. They also took 'El mayara' as our House motto, and to this day, my cousin and I wear the stylized sigil of that motto," (and here Supergirl pointed to the S on her blouse), "on our uniforms."

The crowd applauded. Supergirl waited for the applause to die, then she continued.

"But because Kryptonian society never knew a struggle for the rights of individuals against a tyrannical state, Kryptonians placed all the emphasis in that slogan on the word 'together.' Nowhere in Kryptonian history did anyone ask the question, "Who are the we that are stronger together? Or more properly, who am I, defined apart from the clan, the House or the leaders?"

"And here is the last miracle I must mention. The country I arrived in, the United States of America, this country, is clearly not a perfect country, but a work in progress. It is a country founded on uneasy compromises every bit as much as it is founded on high ideals. It has its serious problems and there are many different views on how those problems should be addressed. Yet despite all the challenging questions America faces today, the fact remains that this country was founded on a new conception of the rights of men and women that was unlike anything that had ever been put forward on Krypton or had been previously known on Earth. Consider these two sentences taken from the opening of the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

"'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.'"

"The first time I read these sentences I realized three things. First, Thomas Jefferson's first sentence is not only a self-evident truth and the unalienable birthright of all who share in the human condition: his words are a logical deduction from the universally recognized moral axiom I alluded to a few moments ago, namely "that which is hateful to you do not do to your fellow." By anchoring fundamental rights in the individual as he does, Jefferson not only ennobles every citizen, but he also gives a new identity to the "we" that neither Kryptonians nor humans had previously known."

"Second, Jefferson's principle also increases the strength of the group. For his words freed then, and still free now, every man or woman resident in this country to use whatever means of pursuing happiness are lawful and ethical. For the first time in known history, whatever means one man or woman may lawfully use to improve their lot were now made available to all men and women. And it is a matter of sheer historical fact, proven by the record of American progress, that whenever men and women have been freed to pursue their dreams, they have achieved much more as individuals and they are stronger and more capable when they come together to pursue common goals."

Here Supergirl was again interrupted by applause. Again she waited for it to end.

"Finally, by virtue of Jefferson's second sentence, the role of government was transformed. Rather than merely ruling or lording over their peoples, as had previously been the norm on both Earth and Krypton, Jefferson rightly saw that governments' fundamental purpose was that of supporting and securing these same individual rights."

"But when I began to serve as Supergirl, I found that Jefferson's words had yet another impact on me. As Supergirl, I do not meet people on the basis of the usual social distinctions that we normally use every day. When I meet and help people who need me, distinctions of skill, wealth, race, color, class or anything else that distinguishes one human being from another are irrelevant. Instead, I meet people and respond to their needs on the basis of our common humanity. Just as Jefferson saw that the fundamental purpose of Government was to secure those self-evident rights for all Americans, I recognize that I have the moral obligation to use the extra-normal abilities that I received in coming to this planet to help individual men and women address threats to their exercise of these same rights."

"And because Jefferson's words have been such an inspiration to me, I count it a special privilege that I was able to help the people of this country, in addition to the rest of the world, survive the worldwide attack by the Kryptonian criminals that the President has mentioned. As I flew to Washington to receive this award, I flew over farmers working in their fields, truckers and railwaymen transporting goods from city to city, union members, tradesmen, business and retail professionals serving their customers, teachers and professors teaching, reporters and news professionals reporting the news, and political leaders serving their constituents; each and every one of you free to use your lives and liberties to pursue your happiness in ways that seem good to you and benefit others. To see this happening, to know that

the Star Spangled Banner yet waves
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave

was and is the greatest reward I could ever desire or receive, and I am deeply humbled that I was able to help keep it that way."

Another roar of applause broke out. When it stopped, Supergirl spoke again.

"Finally, I know that many of you who hear me today, both here in this historic chamber, or by means of the TV cameras broadcasting this event, have legitimate concerns about the uses to which I may put my powers in future. And because you do, I believe it is right and fitting to record here and now before you all, my personal commitment to serve humanity by doing what I may to maintain the inalienable rights of all those who share in the human condition." At this, everyone in the House caught their breath, as Supergirl raised her right hand and continued: "And now therefore I, Kara Zor-El, Eldest and Last Daughter of the House of El, formerly of the planet Krypton, and now engaging in public life on earth under the name Supergirl, do make oath, vow and swear an eternal hostility to anything and everything that threatens the inalienable rights of humans and other sentient beings, and that from this day forward I shall do all I can, where I can and when I can, to help all that I can, to exercise these same inalienable rights so long as I have the power to do so, ni mexkit Rao, which, in English, means so help me God."

"Thank you, good afternoon, and God bless America."

The roar that followed was deafening.