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L. Coyote

(51,129 posts) Tue Dec 19, 2017, 10:08 AM Dec 2017

Who are we as a country? Time to decide: Sally Yates

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/19/what-kind-country-we-speak-out-core-american-values-sally-q-yates-column/951828001/

Sally Q. Yates, Opinion contributor --- Dec. 19, 2017
Stand up and speak out on America's core founding values. We are not living in ordinary times, and it's not enough to admire them from afar.

Over the course of our nation’s history, we have faced inflection points — times when we had to decide who we are as a country and what we stand for. Now is such a time. Beyond policy disagreements and partisan gamesmanship, there is something much more fundamental hanging in the balance. Will we remain faithful to our country’s core values?

Our founding documents set forth the values that make us who we are, or at least who we aspire to be. I say aspire to be because we haven’t always lived up to our founding ideals — even at the time of our founding. When the Declaration of Independence proclaimed that all men are created equal, hundreds of thousands of African Americans were being enslaved by their fellow Americans. ..................

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Who are we as a country? Time to decide: Sally Yates (Original Post) L. Coyote Dec 2017 OP

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media.............. riversedge Dec 2017 #1

riversedge

(70,242 posts)

1. POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media..............

Reply to L. Coyote (Original post)

Tue Dec 19, 2017, 10:13 AM

Dec 2017

I do fear so many will just become exhausted. And that is what Repugs, foxnews et all and trump want.

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

And there is something else that separates us from an autocracy, and that’s truth. There is such a thing as objective truth. We can debate policies and issues, and we should. But those debates must be based on common facts rather than raw appeals to emotion and fear through polarizing rhetoric and fabrications.

Not only is there such a thing as objective truth, failing to tell the truth matters. We can’t control whether our public servants lie to us. But we can control whether we hold them accountable for those lies or whether, in either a state of exhaustion or to protect our own political objectives, we look the other way and normalize an indifference to truth.

We are not living in ordinary times, and it is not enough for us to admire our nation’s core values from afar. Our country’s history is littered with individuals and factions who have tried to exploit our imperfections, but it is more powerfully marked by those whose vigilance toward a more perfect union has prevailed.

So stand up. Speak out. Our country needs all of us to raise our collective voices in support of our democratic ideals and institutions. That is what we stand for. That is who we are. And with a shared commitment to our founding principles, that is who we will remain.

 Sally Q. Yates is former acting attorney general of the United States. Follow her on Twitter: @SallyQYates

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