Americans' patriotic hearts allow hate no space
"When you open your heart to patriotism, there is no room for prejudice. The bible tells us 'How good and pleasant it is, when God's people live together in unity.'" - President Donald Trump
It's impossible to imagine anything more conflictive with the noble American ideal of equality than judging a man by the color of his skin. Opportunities for mobility, entreprenurial activity, and political participation must be open to all.
President Trump, like Jefferson and Reagan before him, knows bigotry is antithetical to our exceptional nation's grand disposition.
"Racism is evil," Trump declared, following 2016's Charlottesville rally tragedy. ""And those who cause violence in its name are criminals and thugs, including the KKK, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and other hate groups who are repugnant to everything we hold dear as Americans."
Speaking before the 1981 NAACP convention, then-President Ronald Reagan also stated the matter with bracing solidity: "A few isolated groups in the back order of American life still hold perverted notions of what America is all about. Recently, in some places in the nation, there's been a disturbing reoccurence of bigotry and violence. To those individuals who persist in such hateful behavior...You are the ones who are out of step with our society. You are the ones who willfully violate the meaning of the dream that is America. And this country, because it does what it stands for, will not stand for your conduct."
Jefferson's immortal words also bear recollection: "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, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
(Jefferson's is a complicated case. Possessed of an intellect of superior quality, he also was a slaveholder. We celebrate him for his immense philosophical contributions, involvement in the authorship of our country's founding documents, and service as vice-president and third president. Honest men acknowledge Jefferson's egregious wrong. But we pay due respect to his far greater salutary attributes and accomplishments. The awful was impermanent, whereas the wonderful has endured.)
By standing in foursquare opposition to hate, and defending America's rightful sovereignty against enemies foreign and domestic, we can make Jefferson's grand values as meaningful as when he took up quill and inscribed them on parchment.
Labels: America, bigotry, Charlottesville, Freedom, hate, Individualism, Jefferson, Liberty, NAACP, Patriotism, racism, Reagan, Trump
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