My Letter to the Next PresidentPosted August 21, 2008 | 11:05 AM (EST)
Robert Byrd, Politics News
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Much of my prescription for setting America right again involves
returning to the wisdom of our Constitution, Some excerpts: ... "What determines the quality of American democracy is the use we make of our power. We have institutions in place to help this country avoid the misuse of our power. Those institutions are Congress, the courts, and public opinion.
The more we cut off true debate and the exchange of ideas, and let those in power use emotion, misdirection, and the manipulation of truth to whip the nation into action, the more likely we are to make dangerous mistakes in how we use our power. A representative democracy only works when the people are involved. We need them." "If nothing else good comes from these last eight years under President Bush, it can at least be hoped that every citizen will come to understand that we can never take our values and our principles for granted and that we must constantly reaffirm and rearticulate them, not only for ourselves, but also for the world.
We must be ever vigilant against the homegrown forces that would turn a nation founded on the universal rights of man into one now intentionally identified with torture, willing to hold people behind bars with no charges filed, willing to justify almost any extreme action on the basis of a highly warped and irrational view of the world." ................................
"It takes time to build the things that most matter.
We built out tradition of democracy through more than two centuries, only to have our Constitution weakened during the last eight years. Those who tear down the work of generations in a self-serving frenzy need only a handful of years to wreak their havoc. Those of us who would build back our legitimacy must think instead of decades and centuries, not mere cycles." "An entire nation cannot be held hostage to fear week after week and month after month and year after year without paying a catastrophic price.
The American people and, yes, all too many of their political leaders have been manipulated and controlled in recent years through the most shameless use of fear that this country has ever seen. Sadly, and shocking as it must be to stare down so sobering a reality, even the infamy of Joseph McCarthy's reign of demagoguery in the 1950s did not threaten the Constitution as directly as we have endured of late."
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more at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-robert-byrd/my-letter-to-the-next-pre_b_120357.html
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