With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace

by Nikki R. Haley

after two years battling with some of the world’s most evil regimes, I’m more convinced than ever that American leadership is necessary for a more peaceful and just world.

Pain is real. Victimhood is a choice.

Instead of trying to understand those who disagree with us, we tend to write them off as not even fit to have a conversation with. Instead of focusing on the things that bring us together, too many Americans obsess about the things that separate us.

The right to speak freely and to associate and worship freely, the right to determine your own future and to be treated equally under the law—these are sacred rights. They are ours by virtue of our humanity, not by virtue of the country or tribe we were born into. Americans take these rights seriously, too seriously to allow them to be cheapened, especially by an institution that calls itself the Human Rights Council.

In some ways we are all victims, but if we dwell on victimhood, we become a nation of grievances, and that undercuts the greatness of America and robs us of a better future.

Americans are passionate. We say what we think and we are strong-willed. That will always be one of our strengths. But at some point we need to take a breath. We need to remind each other that we have more in common than we have differences. We need to look at the person who disagrees with us and not see that person as evil but as someone who is a mother, a daughter, a wife, a friend, a professional, and an American.

Even on our worst days, we are blessed to live in America.