Back in 2004, during the Vice Presidencial debates, the question of the moment was: America's Right to "Go It Alone." Cheney proclaimed: "America will not allow anyone veto power!" Senator Edwards (and by extension the Democratic Party) could respond no better than to mumble meaningless platitudes.
Why couldn't Senator Edwards invoke the words of our United States Declaration of Independence? The last line of the first paragraph reads: "... a decent Respect to the Opinion of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to Separation."
Our Declaration of Independence and its signers granted no one veto power, however they did recognize a higher arbiter of correctness and a requirement that they be able to justify their actions in the eyes of the world!
Why couldn't the Democrat articulate that?
Why have we so easily misplaced our respect for the rest of mankind?
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~ A historic inspiration worth recalling ~
Our Founding Fathers were all men of passionate, deeply held and defensible beliefs.
Yet, each one knew they needed the knowledge and experiences of their ideological opponents.
They allowed themselves the luxury of respecting their opponents and they appreciated that there was something to be learned from most everyone.
They had the humility to understand that no one of them held absolute insight.
And they had the integrity to be able to alter perspectives when new information justified it.
Shouldn't all of us reacquaint ourselves with this principle?
1 comment:
We should listen to the other side to the degree the other side has a rational, reasonable and well supported position.
Flat-Earthers and those who still think Trump won the 2020 election don't deserve to have one second of time wasted 'considering' their position.
The founding fathers generously gave the American people credit when it came to intelligence and thoughtfulness. In the generations since that time we have declined in both those areas and their charitable view of the public has become a way for the least rational and most selfish to claim their views are equal to ours.
They aren't.
Cheers,
pirat
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