What Unites Us: Reflections on Patriotism

by Dan Rather

The states viewed higher education as a central governmental service they would provide to their citizens.

the fight for the soul of American public education is one from which none of us can afford to shrink.

Education is not about just planting a seed; it is also about nurturing, over many decades, a productive, meaningful, and happy life.

Love Elementary

We live in debt to those who have served and died, a debt tallied in blood. And too often our political leaders who commit our young men, and now young women, into war do not take this

truth into account with an adequate fullness of measure.

regardless of the rank they held in life. Death strikes us all with the same finality.

In war, most deaths are lonely, and leave loneliness behind.

War turns upside down the normal order of life; being young makes you more likely to die.

our society would benefit if more of our politicians had at least shown some inclination toward personal sacrifice and the need to help others before they entered office.

if more of our elected officials had served in causes other than their own advancement, I believe they would approach their jobs with less certainty in their own assumptions and more sympathy for the needs of others.

the United States long ago lost its lead on rail to the great trains of Europe and Asia.

It would behoove us to remember that America was conceived and built by risk-takers and explorers. We have been a land of movement, new thoughts, and unbridled audacity.

President Ronald Reagan addressed the nation, he had a special message for these young eyewitnesses to tragedy. “I know it is hard to understand, but sometimes painful things like this happen. It’s all part of the process of exploration and discovery. It’s all part of taking a chance and expanding man’s horizons. The future doesn’t belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave.

A nation is strengthened when it can focus on a purpose. This impulse can be harnessed to ill effects, like wars of conquest. Or it can be used to turn unlikely dreams into reality.

One of the greatest challenges of our time is the need to generate abundant and nonpolluting energy.

But today we see the dangers of our warming planet. Bold leadership could rally the nation to a revolution in clean energy.

distressingly the current political tides seem to be carrying us in the opposite direction.

It should be clear to our political leaders that a new energy strategy could be the next technological revolution America could lead.

But we are ceding the momentum to others ...

Our planet and our national prosperity are already suffering from the dec...

At a time when we desperately need to think boldly about the challenges before us, we find many of our politicians arguing that we need to be less ambitious. We hear from too many in Congress about why action is difficult, why something cannot be done. Many of our government agencies have now been turned over to people who are actively seeking to undermine the mission of those agencies. And our national needs go unaddressed. It is impossible to try to freeze ourselves in the status quo, and even more impossible to return to some mythic and misremembered g...

It will come as no surprise to those who have worked with me that one of my favorite words is “steady.”

We have never fully regained the confidence we felt at the end of World War II, or the unity.

Unlike a parliamentary system, in which the leader of the executive branch derives his or her support from the legislature, we often have divided government with different political parties controlling the presidency and Congress.

This can often stymie big actions. Whether one thinks that is a good thing or not, it usually depends on whether those in power align with your political views. When they do, we often chafe at their inability to get through their agenda. When they do not, we tend to revel in the checks on power within our system.

It is important to note that this stability of our system of government has only intermittently prevented progress. In the decades after the Korean War, we saw meaningful and positive action on racial and social justice, the economy and the environment, infrastructure, and workers’ rights. But in recent years, I have worried increasingly that the mechanics of our government may be coming under a debilitating strain. We have seen two presidential elections in a short span where the winner of the popular vote did not win the antiquated electoral college. That is deeply troubling. Far greater political retrenchment, exacerbated by gerrymandered congressional districts, has led to political parties in Congress voting as blocs, with far less room for compromise. We have seen a push for far more ideological purity

from our judges, and especially from those justices selected for the Supreme Court. We have seen inaction on important issues even where there is large agreement among the voting public—for example, on background checks for gun purchases, criminal justice reform, and campaign financing.

I remind myself and others that we have been through big challenges in the past, that it often seems darkest in the present. The pendulum of our great nation seems to have swung toward conceit and unsteadiness once again, but it is in our power to wrest it back. Our government is there to serve us, not the other way around.

We would do well to study our history. For in it lies not only evidence of American greatness, but also the need for humility.

“With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan—to do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.”

I have suggested, and will do so again here, that we all reach down deep into the soul of this nation and hold on to the central principles that have made us great. Do not let go. Do not apologize or explain away your brand of patriotism. Do not sacrifice your ideals.

Ultimately, democracy is an action more than a belief. The people’s voice, your voice, must be heard for it to have an effect.

many hurdles diminish the power of our collective speech, such as how we finance campaigns, our discriminatory voting laws, and the preferred p...

“I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.

despite real impediments in our voting process, despite the dissemination of news and propaganda.

since our system of government is one of representative democracy, the power of the vote must be paramount.

The chasm over race and citizenship is inescapable in American history, and it casts a shadow over almost every conceivable aspect of our national story.

I think civics can be one of the most empowering things we can teach our children.

When it is not taught, our young people learn that they don’t have to worry about government, that they can leave it to others: the rich, the well connected, the ones who’ve lived in this country longer, or their elders.

How do we expect people to participate in something they don’t understand?

And when we teach civics, it shouldn’t be from textbooks only. Civics is about action, about dealing with and...

“Do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Adhere to your own act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant, and broken the monotony of a decorous age.”

quixotic

this country benefits from a vibrant and fearless press and that the necessary debates of governance are useless without an informed citizenry.

My greatest desire for this book is that it encourage conversation and debate about what it means to be an American today, and more broadly over the course of this nation’s history.