Roll Over Barbara Jordan — As You Spoke For The Constitution In 1974, Sally Yates Speaks For The Constitution Today

This blogger never looks at what Tom Tomorrow calls "McNews" (USA Today), but he glanced at an Op-Ed that transcended "McNews" and raised for Attorney General Sally Yates to the Pantheon of eloquent defenders of the Constitution of the United States of America. Idiotic tweets whither and die in cyrberspace. Sally Yates has written words for the ages. If this is the (fair & balanced) difference between true and false, so be it.

[x USA Today]
Who Are We As A Country? — Time To Decide
By Sally Q. Yates

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accountable americans aspire autocracy commitment common control country criminal debate decide dedicated democratic equal form founding freedom fully general hold ideals individual institution justice law leaders liberty lived nation objective perfect policy political power principles protect public remain rights rule separation shared stand state times today truth union values vigilance

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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.

Not so long ago, all across the Jim Crow South, our country’s definition was defiled by lynchings, the systematic disenfranchisement of African-American voters, and the burning of freedom riders’ buses. And still today, we have yet to realize fully our nation’s promise of equal justice.

But while we have too often fallen short, we have remained dedicated to our defining principles in our resolve to form a more perfect union. These principles have remained if not fully who we are, at least who we seek to be.

Despite our differences, we as Americans have long held a shared vision of what our country means and what values we expect our leaders to embrace. Today, our continued commitment to these unifying principles is needed more than ever.

What are the values that unite us? You don’t have to look much further than the Preamble to our Constitution, just 52 words, to find them:

“We the people of the United States” (we are a democratic republic, not a dictatorship) “in order to form a more perfect union” (we are a work in progress dedicated to a noble pursuit) “establish justice” (we revere justice as the cornerstone of our democracy) “insure domestic tranquility” (we prize unity and peace, not divisiveness and discord), “provide for the common defense” (we should never give any foreign adversary reason to question our solidarity) “promote the general welfare” (we care about one another; compassion and decency matter) “and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity” (we have a responsibility to protect not just our own generation, but future ones as well).

Our forefathers packed a lot into that single sentence. Our Bill of Rights is similarly succinct in guaranteeing individual liberties — rights that we have come to take for granted but without vigilance can erode and slip away, such as freedom of speech (our right to protest and be heard); freedom of religion (the essential separation between how one worships and the power of the state); and freedom of the press (a democratic institution essential to informing the public and holding our leaders accountable).

The rule of law depends not only on things that are written down, but also on important traditions and norms, such as apolitical law enforcement. That’s why Democratic and Republican administrations alike, at least since Watergate, have honored that the rule of law requires a strict separation between the Justice Department and the White House on criminal cases and investigations. This wall of separation is what ensures the public can have confidence that the criminal process is not being used as a sword to go after one’s political enemies or as a shield to protect those in power. It’s what separates us from an autocracy.

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 (January 20-30, 2017). During her hearing for confirmation as Deputy Attorney General of the United States in 2015 — when questioned by Senator Jeff Sessions (presently AG of the United States) if she would disobey a president's unlawful orders — Yates responded that she would have an obligation to follow the law and the Constitution, and to give an independent legal advice to the president and she was confirmed by the US Senate thereafter. Yates received both a BA (journalism) and a JD, magna cum laude from the University of Georgia.]

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