Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Peter's comment to
Dean's response to Peter's comment also touched me Please click through and read Dean's words first. No, Dean, I feel no sense of shame at all. I feel a deep sense of pride that a man of such integrity and courage believes in, and fought for, the same things I believe in. We *won* that war. There. That war was lost here at home by citizens willing, hell, eager, to believe the worst about their own country and countrymen. We lost faith in ourselves and all that we stood for. That is a lesson that I am grateful to Kerry, in all his misguided intentions, for bringing up to us -- US -- today. We need to take note of this particular bit of our history and just exactly how we allowed freedom of speech to morph into freedom of bullying and make us lose that war. We need to learn what is was that made us open to losing our focus and direction. We need to know how we came to believe we had lost our Honor. For in believing that we had lost it, we gave it up. We need to examine that part of our history closely for the lessons it has to teach us today. We lost that war in Viet Nam and the Vietnamese people paid. Dearly. We cannot afford to lose this war through the same mistake of refusing to believe in ourselves and each other. This time, not only will we pay dearly, but the people of many other nations will pay, in turn. We need to reacquaint ourselves with what is good and right and pure and unique about The Great Experiment that is America. We need to return to the roots of belief in the basic goodness of Man from which our approach to governance sprang. We need to give ourselves permission to be proud of all that we have accomplished in our mere 228 years and believe that we, indeed, still have the Right Stuff to continue to do credit to our forefathers, and to ourselves. We need to give ourselves permission to protect ourselves because what we have created and what we have done is worth protecting. And what we will do will be principled, and decent and right. Then we need to choose our course and commit to it, being willing to sacrifice to help others who would do the same, and do what we can afford to do for those who would not. We need to draw clear boundaries on how we will allow others to treat us and to speak about us. Only by respecting ourselves can we hoe to earn the respect of others whom we respect. We need to realize that it will be messy, difficult to the point of unbearable, unpopular and painful to follow through on our commitment. We need to remember that the alternative -- slavery -- is infinitely worse. We need to understand that the act, itself, of standing up for ourselves, for our families and for our country is right and decent and good. We need to respect ourselves, and each other, for doing so. So, no, I do not feel ashamed. Even though there are squabbles and disputes among us; even though some of our own so dislike their kind they are willing to restrict speech, restrict rights, restrict people and turn this country into a jail; even though free speech brings out all manner of ugliness amongst the decency; I feel proud. I feel proud of this country, proud of my people and proud of all we have accomplished, for ourselves and for the world.
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