The Senseless Drive To Break America Apart

On August 15, 1996, as with each presidential convention, the focus of Bob Dole’s acceptance speech invariably touched on an “America only the unknowing call a myth.”

The Republican Party is broad and inclusive. It represents many streams of opinion and many points of view.

But if there's anyone who has mistakenly attached themselves to our party in the belief that we are not open to citizens of every race and religion, then let me remind you, tonight this hall belongs to the Party of Lincoln. And the exits which are clearly marked are for you to walk out of as I stand this ground without compromise.

And though, I can only look up at a very steep angle, to Washington and Lincoln, let me remind you of their concern for the sometimes-delicate unity of the people.

The notion that we are and should be one people rather than "peoples" of the United States seems so self-evident and obvious that it's hard for me to imagine that I must defend it. When I was growing up in Russell, Kansas, it was clear to me that my pride and my home were in America, not in any faction, and not in any division.

In this I was heeding, even as I do unto this day, Washington's eloquent rejection of factionalism. I was honoring, even as I do unto this day, Lincoln's word, his life and his sacrifice. The principle of unity has been with us in all our successes.

The 10th Mountain Division, in which I served in Italy, and the Black troops of the 92ndm Division who fought nearby were the proof for me once again of the truth I'm here trying to convey.

The war was fought just a generation after America's greatest and most intense period of immigration. And yet when the blood of the sons of immigrants and the grandsons of slaves fell on foreign fields, it was American blood. In it you could not read the ethnic particulars of the soldier who died next to you. He was an American.

And when I think how we learned this lesson I wonder how we could have unlearned it. Is the principle of unity, so hard-fought and at the cost of so many lives, having been contested again and again in our history, and at such a terrible price, to be casually abandoned to the urge to divide?

The answer is no.

Must we give in to the senseless drive to break apart that which is beautiful and whole and good?

And so tonight I call on every American to rise above all that may divide us, and to defend the unity of the nation for the honor of generations past, and the sake of those to come.

How Far Must We Fall?

A wounded city is about to lay to rest one of its finest on Saturday.  The other officer’s funeral awaits the arrival of his relatives from China.  Some 20,000 to 25,000 police officers and law enforcement officials from across the U.S. and Canada are expected to attend the funerals of Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos.

For months we have witnessed the disintegration of civil society stemming from the death of a young black man in Missouri to the chokehold death of a black man selling loose cigarettes on the streets of New York.  In both cases, a grand jury returned a “no true bill” of indictment against the officers involved in those deaths.

During a press conference New York’s mayor Bill de Blasio brought up his son, Dante, who is of mixed race and implied that he was concerned that his son might be the victim of police misconduct from the NYPD:

“I've said very, very clearly in these last days, let's be clear this is not based on decades of racism, this is based on centuries of racism.”

"So I've had to worry over the years. Chirlane's [de Blasio’s wife] had to worry. Is Dante safe each night? There are so many families in this city who feel that each and every night. Is my child safe? And not just from some of the painful realities—crime and violence in some of our neighborhoods—but is safe from the very people they want to have faith in as their protectors.”

“We’ve had to literally train him, as families have all over this city for decades, in how to take special care in any encounter he has with the police officers who are there to protect him.” 

The ravings of protesters spurred on by racial huckster Al Sharpton and the incendiary remarks following the grand jury announcement in the Eric Garner case saw two police lieutenants attacked by a City University of New York adjunct professor and an organizer for the Service Employees International Union on the Brooklyn Bridge.

de Blasio callously praised the protesters even as some chanted, “What do we want?  Dead cops!  When do we want it?  Now!”  The mayor said the attack was “an incident in which a small group of protesters allegedly assaulted some members of the NYPD.”

Someone at The New York Daily News offered a powerful suggestion that the injudicious mayor “bring his teen son Dante to the funerals of Ramos and Liu to witness firsthand the tragic human side of the police experience. Let Dante meet Ramos’ teenage son. Have Dante greet the shattered families, weeping cops mourning fallen brothers in blue. Let Dante understand the unspoken fears of a son every time his dad puts on his blue uniform and goes out to protect high-crime neighborhoods filled with kids who look a lot like Dante.”

This is a suggestion that I wholeheartedly admonish him to consider.  If Dante would exhibit even a fragment of character, he would tell the world his dad was wrong to associate with Al Sharpton and he was wrong to tell him to fear a civil society.  His words might sway those who have hardened their hearts and degraded the value of human life and incited violence.  He would know that each killing, whether black or white, hastens the next killing.

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