My Campaign Kick-Off Speech (HD 28)
| By Steve Harvey - Sep 22nd, 2009 at 10:02 pm EDT |
| Also listed in: Jeffco Progress |
I am running for office because I believe in the human enterprise. I believe that we can do better. I believe that reasonable people of good will can and should work together to create an ever more robust, sustainable, and fair social institutional framework.
It's not just about getting good candidates elected to office. That is just one thread in a much larger tapestry.
It's about all of us working in a variety of ways to make the world a slightly better place.
It's about being good parents and good neighbors and good citizens.
It's about engaging people in respectful conversation about issues of importance to us all.
It's about writing letters to the editor and participating in public forums.
It's about rebuilding a sense of community, a sense of common purpose, a sense of mutual responsibility.
One would think that this would be uncontroversial, that it would be uncontested. One would think that it would be a basic shared value of our society. But we are faced with a fire-breathing dragon of blind ideology. We are faced with a dogma of mutual indifference, even belligerence, wrapped in a flag that was never woven for that purpose.
We must douse that dragon's flames with unrelenting reason and good will.
We are not the party of extreme individualism. We are not the party of unfettered greed. Society has not failed us if we cannot afford an 80 inch plasma screen television set.
Society has not failed us if we cannot afford a late model new car.
Society has not failed us if we cannot afford 1000 square feet of floor space for each member of our family.
But society has failed us if any one of us dies because they couldn't afford health insurance.
Society has failed us when the tragedy of serious illness is compounded by the devastation of financial ruin.
Society has failed us when it sacrifices our children's education to an unimaginative assembly-line paradigm that completely neglects to confront the challenge of inspiring and nurturing young minds.
Society has failed us when it denies a loving and committed couple the same rights and privileges accorded to other loving and committed couples simply because they happen to be of the same sex.
Society has failed us when it complacently permits the greatest polarization of rich and poor of any developed nation on Earth.
Society has failed us when it has the highest number and highest percentage of its population incarcerated of any nation on Earth.
Society has failed us when it fails to put into place checks on our collective destruction of the planet on which we depend.
Don't get me wrong. It's a complex and subtle world. It's not enough to just get together and hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." We must apply the best analyses to the most reliable data, always in service to reason and good will.
We must understand the systems that are implicated in social policies, both the social systems and the natural systems with which they interface: The economic, political, cultural, and technological systems; and the hydrological, geological, atmospheric, ecological, and physical systems upon which we draw and which we in turn affect.
We must be pragmatic, realistic, and strategic, not just in designing good policies, but also in devising effective strategies for getting those policies implemented.
We must negotiate and compromise.
We must never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
There is only one thing on which we should never compromise, and that is that we steadfastly remain reasonable people of good will doing the very best we can.
I'm proud to stand among people who believe that it's more patriotic to lift one another up than to knock one another down.
I'm proud to stand among people who believe the words in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, that we are forever a work in progress, constantly challenged to create an ever more perfect union.
I'm proud to stand among people who strive for the day when our disputes will be defined by the limits of our reason rather than by the extent of our bigotry.
We are all in this story together, both characters and authors at the same time. We'd better make damn sure we write our story well.
It's not just about getting good candidates elected to office. That is just one thread in a much larger tapestry.
It's about all of us working in a variety of ways to make the world a slightly better place.
It's about being good parents and good neighbors and good citizens.
It's about engaging people in respectful conversation about issues of importance to us all.
It's about writing letters to the editor and participating in public forums.
It's about rebuilding a sense of community, a sense of common purpose, a sense of mutual responsibility.
One would think that this would be uncontroversial, that it would be uncontested. One would think that it would be a basic shared value of our society. But we are faced with a fire-breathing dragon of blind ideology. We are faced with a dogma of mutual indifference, even belligerence, wrapped in a flag that was never woven for that purpose.
We must douse that dragon's flames with unrelenting reason and good will.
We are not the party of extreme individualism. We are not the party of unfettered greed. Society has not failed us if we cannot afford an 80 inch plasma screen television set.
Society has not failed us if we cannot afford a late model new car.
Society has not failed us if we cannot afford 1000 square feet of floor space for each member of our family.
But society has failed us if any one of us dies because they couldn't afford health insurance.
Society has failed us when the tragedy of serious illness is compounded by the devastation of financial ruin.
Society has failed us when it sacrifices our children's education to an unimaginative assembly-line paradigm that completely neglects to confront the challenge of inspiring and nurturing young minds.
Society has failed us when it denies a loving and committed couple the same rights and privileges accorded to other loving and committed couples simply because they happen to be of the same sex.
Society has failed us when it complacently permits the greatest polarization of rich and poor of any developed nation on Earth.
Society has failed us when it has the highest number and highest percentage of its population incarcerated of any nation on Earth.
Society has failed us when it fails to put into place checks on our collective destruction of the planet on which we depend.
Don't get me wrong. It's a complex and subtle world. It's not enough to just get together and hold hands and sing "Kumbaya." We must apply the best analyses to the most reliable data, always in service to reason and good will.
We must understand the systems that are implicated in social policies, both the social systems and the natural systems with which they interface: The economic, political, cultural, and technological systems; and the hydrological, geological, atmospheric, ecological, and physical systems upon which we draw and which we in turn affect.
We must be pragmatic, realistic, and strategic, not just in designing good policies, but also in devising effective strategies for getting those policies implemented.
We must negotiate and compromise.
We must never let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
There is only one thing on which we should never compromise, and that is that we steadfastly remain reasonable people of good will doing the very best we can.
I'm proud to stand among people who believe that it's more patriotic to lift one another up than to knock one another down.
I'm proud to stand among people who believe the words in the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, that we are forever a work in progress, constantly challenged to create an ever more perfect union.
I'm proud to stand among people who strive for the day when our disputes will be defined by the limits of our reason rather than by the extent of our bigotry.
We are all in this story together, both characters and authors at the same time. We'd better make damn sure we write our story well.
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