Today's post is written by a guest author on this blog, my son. This piece is the result of much reading, research, and thought, and reviewed by editors spanning three generations. It is about one of the most important topics of our time, our political dysfunction and polarization. Please take the time to read it.
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There are real boundaries beyond which our society and
system of government can and will break down. There is a minimum level of
solidarity required for a nation to survive with citizens rather than subjects,
and a minimum level of social stability required for it to function. We can
fall too far and merely avoiding disintegrating society is not enough. We must do
far better, for ourselves, for the world, and for the future.
Part 1: How the American Democratic Republic Works
As others have already noted, our civil rights, government representation,
and social solidarity are degrading. Understanding the mechanics of our
republic and their weaknesses is necessary to understand how this degradation
is occurring. Note, however, that alternative mechanics have their own
different weaknesses. Replacing these mechanics is not a guarantee of
revitalization although there might be opportunities for improvement.
The Voting System
The United States of America is a democratic republic. By
district, representatives of the people are selected by the majority of
eligible voters.
The United States almost exclusively uses
first-past-the-pole voting – a winner-takes-all, plurality voting method. In
combination with single-member districts, this results in a two-party system
because only parties approximately as popular as the most popular party are
competitively electable. If one party has about 50% popularity, then it is
impossible for two more parties to also be realistically competitive.
The Democratic and Republican parties are not conspiring to
keep out additional parties. "Elites" are not conspiring to have
exactly two parties. Political patrons are not the source of the two-party
system. A two-party system is merely the expected practical result of the
current voting system.
In some districts, it's not even Democratic and Republican,
but sometimes Libertarian and Republican, or Democratic and Green that are the
top two parties – and thus are the only competitive parties capable of possibly
winning election in that district at the time. If one party is sufficiently
popular in a district, then no other party has a practical chance of winning.
Votes for third party candidates and independents aren't
necessarily "wasted", but votes for candidates other than the two
most likely to win are "wasted" as much as "extra" votes
for the winner or any votes for the loser are "wasted" (insofar as
they are more likely to be for a losing candidate). Such votes only communicate
support for some value, policy, or proposal rather than deciding the winner of
the election.
Only winners make
policy.
Single-Member Districts (The U.S. is not Europe)
In Europe (or more specifically, in multi-member districts
whose elections award proportional representation), people get to vote for
whichever political parties they think best represent their interests. The
elected representatives are then sent to the capital and must "form a
government" – i.e. agree on which collection of political parties will
cooperate to form a governing majority willing and able to vote together in
order to accomplish governance. This process involves negotiation and usually
involves the party with the most representatives, but not a majority of all
representatives, agreeing to one or a few demands from a smaller party that is
still large enough to form a majority coalition with the largest party. When
these negotiations fail, American news headlines read [European Country]
"fails to form a government" or "failed to form a governing
coalition".
What would be fully formed political parties in Europe are
instead sub-party political units in the United States. American major parties'
compositions and coalitions change over time, but at any one time they tend to
be led by a specific core constituency. These sub-party constituencies jostle
for influence inside the major political parties, and through history they have
occasionally withdrawn from one major party to support the other. For example,
1980-2016 saw the libertarian business sub-party (lower taxes, less regulation,
smaller government) lead a coalition with the evangelical Christians and the
"law and order" sub-parties.
In the United States, the voters instead of the
representatives are expected to negotiate among themselves to come up with a
workable governing coalition of interests, preferences, values, and policies. If
you want your values and agenda to be represented in government, and for your
policy preferences to be enacted, then you need to work to put your values and
agenda into a winning (i.e. majority) platform at the level of government in
which you are interested. If you do not
like this situation, then you need to change the voting system.
The Primary and Caucus System
The specific platform and policies a party takes to the general
election is decided through the pre-election primary and caucus system. In this
system, candidates of the same party, each with a different emphasis on various
issues, compete to represent the entire party in the general election. Depending
on state law, sometimes all voters are allowed to vote in open primaries,
sometimes voters are only allowed to vote in the primary election or caucus for
the party for which they are currently registered, and sometimes party members
vote in caucuses for delegates to a convention where the delegates then vote
for a candidate for the general election.
The kinds of candidates brought to the general election by
this system depend on the circumstances. Moderate candidates benefit from swing
voters and competitive districts (where multiple parties have a reasonable
chance of winning). Extreme candidates benefit from polarization, ideologues,
and primary voters who are more concerned with signaling their identity than in
winning the general election.
The current situation in the United States is unfortunately
the latter for a couple reasons. First, turnout in primary elections is
relatively low. This is problematic because ideologically polarized voters are far more motivated and more likely to participate.
Second, almost everyone has a distorted view of the prevalence of their
viewpoint. Voters tend to believe that the candidate most in tune with their
viewpoint has the best chance of winning. So partisans in primaries and
caucuses promote extreme candidates and blame general election losses on
candidates' insufficient partisanship, instead of insufficient moderation. Even
if the general electorate might prefer a moderate candidate, apathy toward the
primaries and caucuses results in polarized candidates advancing to the general
election.
The primary and caucus
system exacerbates the effects of single-member districts on the candidate
selection and election process. So does the fact that voters are typically
barred from voting in primaries or participating in caucuses except for those
of the party for which they are registered. Closed primaries and caucuses prevent
voters from voting against the least desirable candidates in other parties while
also voting for their most preferred candidate from their own party.
Gerrymandering
When there are districts instead of proportional
representation, the district boundaries must be decided upon. And where there
is a decision to be made, there is the opportunity to influence the outcome and
result of the decision. Thus gerrymandering: the manipulation of electoral
constituency boundaries so as to favor a desired outcome.
When successful, gerrymandering functionally eliminates the
general election by ensuring that only the gerrymandered party's candidate can
realistically get elected. This effectively disenfranchises everyone not
registered as members of that party.
Preventing gerrymandering is a chicken-and-egg problem. Only
the current majority party has the political power to avoid gerrymandering, but
they would be the beneficiary of gerrymandering.
Gerrymandering exacerbates
the effects of the primary and caucus system on the candidate selection and
election process by reducing the competitiveness of districts (the
likelihood that more than one party has a realistic chance of winning a given
district).
Low Voter Choice in General Election Voting
All of these factors lead to the glaring systemic weakness of
limited voter choice in the United States. When it comes time to actually vote
in the general election, most of the politics and opportunity for citizen-led
change has already passed and voters are effectively left at best with a choice
of supporting A, supporting B, or protest (and living with the systemic choice
of everyone else in all cases), and even that choice only practically exists
for those living in competitive districts.
Polarization and Political Self-Segregation
But low choice is itself further exacerbated if the voters
themselves are polarized and extreme in their views, values, and preferences.
Gerrymandering isn't even necessary to create uncompetitive, single-party
districts if people choose where to live based on their personal politics.
Fewer voters in the United States hold a mix of conservative
Republican and progressive Democratic values now than in the past. Counties in
the United States are increasingly partisan – very red or very blue, and less
purple. The current trend is that polarization and partisanship are continuing
to increase.
Polarization is our principal challenge because nothing
about the mechanics threatens the stability of our collective society or the
unity of our nation. Self-segregation is the outward manifestation of our
failing solidarity. I believe that democratic mechanics cannot survive in an
environment of different peoples who desire to be separate and believe others'
differences to be so objectionable that they must be forcibly corrected. Ultimately,
this is about us, who we choose to be, what we choose to value, and how we
interact with others.
Part 2: Sustaining the American Experiment
The American Democratic Republic and the constitution on
which it stands is worth preserving.
Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the
things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that
honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and
power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to
remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You
remember that. Doesn't matter if it's true or not. You see, a man should
believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.
-- Hub, in Secondhand Lions [2003]
The American
Democratic Republic will survive only so long as enough Americans want the
American Experiment to continue more than
they want anything else.
Design Expectations
A republican, or free government, can only exist where the
body of the people are virtuous, and where property is pretty equally divided;
in such a government the people are the sovereign and their sense or opinion is
the criterion of every public measure; for when this ceases to be the case, the
nature of the government is changed, and an aristocracy, monarchy or despotism
will rise on its ruin.
-- Samuel Bryan, the Anti-Federalist Papers, Centinel
I [1787/10/05]
No system, no matter how simple or complex, can continue to
exist and operate outside of its performance parameters, including governments.
All system designs, including governments, rely on implicit and explicit
assumptions and expectations about the operating conditions and environment.
The design foundation
of the United States of America is the U.S. Constitution, specifying
government of the people, by the people, and for the people of the United
States of America. The phrasing is Lincoln's, and it refers to the
Constitution's guarantee of a Republican form of government, the voting rights
of citizens, and the preamble. That foundation has been built upon by American
history and culture, expressing additional assumptions about and expectations
of the government and its people, documented in the Declaration of
Independence, the Federalist Papers, Presidential speeches, Supreme Court
decisions, and other expressions of American progress.
Collectively, this corpus of evidence shows that the design of the American government
relies strongly upon the cooperativeness of its people and the trustworthiness
of the statesmen selected to be their representatives. This government
design relies upon its participants – citizens, voters and representatives – to
debate with each other instead of fighting when there is disagreement, and to
voluntarily act in the best interests of the nation and all of its people
rather than acting in self-interest at the expense of their neighbors and
fellow citizens. Furthermore, effective functioning of the government requires that
we honor both the spirit and the letter of the rules of the Constitution, and participate
fairly in the conduct of elections and governance.
If these expectations are not met, if citizens vote to punish rather
than to accommodate their neighbors, if politicians seek partisan success ahead
of the concerns of the entire community, if special interests confuse their
agendas with the best interests of the nation, then this form of government
will fail.
The American Experiment
I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are
going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of
America is freedom.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr., "Remaining Awake
Through a Great Revolution" [ 1968/03/31]
What is the essence of America? The essence of America is
finding and maintaining that perfect, delicate balance between freedom
"to" and freedom "from."
-- Marilyn vos Savant, quoted in Women Know
Everything! by Karen Weekes [2007]
The American
Experiment is a unique, transformative concept of society: the idea that a
nation can be built on a unified yet multifaceted culture based on ideas, laws,
and trust, rather than on religious or ethnic identity and feudal loyalty. The
American Experiment began with the creation of These United States of America, established itself and its shared
values in the world as The United
States of America, and the experiment continues by broadening the answer to
"Who is an American?", expanding to include ever more of those with
American values, merits, and virtues.
The Making of Americans
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more
perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of
Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America.
preamble to the Constitution of the United States of
America [1788/06/21]
In my view, America is more than just a country; it is a set
of ideals and a system of governance to support Americans’ liberties and our
common good. Being American is about more than merely being a citizen of the
United States; it is about choosing to live American values. Being American is belief
and action, not just accident of birth. Americans
are American by choice, by belief, and by deed rather than by birthright.
This has been the case since the beginning; the founding fathers were born
British, but chose to be Americans.
American values, merits, and virtues are readily identified
in its founding documents and the supplemental material created throughout its
history. A small sample of relevant quotes is included in Appendix 1.
Collectively, this corpus of evidence shows that being
American demands a multitude of values, merits, and actions. Chief among them
are personal integrity; care, responsibility, and respect for others; and working
toward freedom and justice for all.
Few manage to live up to this calling perfectly, but the
important fact is that many try. Being American is about striving to live up to
whom we know we should be – every failure of any American is a reminder to all
Americans to do better.
Partisanship
I am for freedom of religion, & against all maneuvres to
bring about a legal ascendancy of one sect over another, for freedom of the
press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and
not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens
against the conduct of their agents.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Elbridge Gerry
[1799/01/26]
If we do not learn to sacrifice small differences of opinion,
we can never act together. Every man cannot have his way in all things. If his
own opinion prevails at some times, he should acquiesce on seeing that of
others preponderate at others. Without this mutual disposition we are
disjointed individuals, but not a society.
-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Dickinson
[1801/07/23]
The partisan rejects
the design of the United States of America, treating it as an obstruction rather
than as a foundation. Partisans frequently call themselves "true Americans",
but they care more about imposing their values on other people than about upholding
the rule-of-law and defending the rights and civil liberties of fellow
citizens.
There is not one source of partisans. Every cause has
zealots.
Some partisans will loudly voice values you agree with and
energetically support your preferred policies. But they are revealed as extreme
partisans when they advocate not just for themselves, but against American
institutions. The health and independence of American institutions are
necessary prerequisites to our system of checks and balances. The integrity and
effectiveness of American institutions is necessary for the institutions'
credibility.
In the past, extreme partisans believed in monarchy over
self determination, they demanded slavery over inalienable rights, they
preferred isolation to a world safe for democracy, they became enamored of
authoritarians – fascists and communists –, and they denied the truth that all
men are created equal. Even now, they endeavor to change America to fit their
own image over the objections of those who defend the American experiment.
Maintaining America
Freedom is never more than one generation away from
extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be
fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we
will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children
what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
-- Ronald Reagan, address to the Phoenix Chamber of
Commerce [1961/03/30]
The work of maintaining America is not the same as its
defense by the armed services or its operation by the public services. The work
of maintaining America is found in the day-to-day lives of its citizens and the
politics of their interactions with each other. The maintenance is performed
through the innumerable actions, large and small, of Americans trying their
best to live up to American ideals.
America is maintained
through voluntary cooperation – whether that is showing up to vote,
supporting a non-profit, or assisting a neighbor with chores or errands.
Voluntary cooperation is inhibited when people resort to conflict rather than
debate, treat compromise as capitulation, or treat disagreement as war to be
won rather than an opportunity to contribute to the search for truth.
America is maintained
through respectful interaction – whether that is charitably engaging with political
issues, tolerating other people's preferences and choices about what makes a
good life well lived, or being polite to grumpy cashiers. Respectful
interaction is obstructed when people deliberately misinform others, manipulatively
argue against misrepresented positions, insult and denigrate opponents, or fail
to recognize the rights of others and honor their choice to live differently.
America is maintained
by upholding the spirit as well as the letter of the law – not just being a
law-abiding individual, but actively self-regulating to save society the effort
of regulation, and knowing when peaceful, civil disobedience is called for. The
rule of law is corroded when people fail to abide by established process and
uphold the validity of the outcome, especially including accepted methods of
altering our processes. Peacefully accepting the results of our elections, and
the rights and powers of those elected, is central to rule of law in a
democratic republic.
America is maintained
by acting with integrity and trust – integrity worthy of trust by fellow
Americans, and trust of fellow Americans' integrity – whether that is investing
to create real value rather than profiting at the expense of other people, preparing
healthy food and eating food provided by others, manufacturing safe products
and maintaining safe workplaces, or avoiding collisions while driving and
trusting other motorists to do the same. Trust and integrity are undermined
when people pursue profits that result in harm to society, seek power to the
detriment of community, or otherwise create externalized costs borne by society
at large and/or by future generations. Trust is a two-way street and must be given
as well as earned.
America is maintained
by pursuing values, not policies, and by honestly evaluating results –
whether that is pursuing freedom by tolerating speech, pursuing justice with
juries, or providing for the common defense with the military. Based on
experience, these policies have been given practical legal limits in society’s
best interest – prohibiting false advertising, guaranteeing legal
representation to defendants, and restricting domestic use of the military. American
governance is hobbled when policies are pursued without remembering the values
they were intended to serve, and when programs are not monitored for results or
programs are not revisited when results are poor.
America is maintained by Americans acting in the best
interests of society even when they are discontent with their own lives, when
they are disgruntled with their fellow citizens, or see opportunity for
themselves at others' expense.
The system needs all of these things and more to keep
working. There are many more ways to break the system than to keep it working.
Why America Matters
Despite all of America’s specific problems, it is the oldest
democracy in the world. With the exception of Canada, it has the deepest
experience with trying to make a multiethnic democracy work. If the forces that
are pulling us apart are strong enough to make democracy fail in this country,
I fear that similar reasons will also prove strong enough to make democracy
fail in most other countries in the world.
-- Yascha Mounk, comment about his book
The People vs. Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It
[2018]
America’s values and behavior matter to the world. Ideologies
do not rise and fall directly by chance. Their successes and failures are
observed, and ideologies are adopted, amended, or abandoned accordingly. It matters
how America goes about achieving success. It matters that America honestly and transparently commits itself to
the philosophy by which it has achieved so much.
The example of a successful democracy is the greatest fear
of autocracies around the world. Examples of successful government by the people
bolster ideologies of freedom and equality while undermining ideologies of authoritarianism,
theocracy, ethnic domination, social hierarchy and control. The reverse is also
true. Sophisticated governments understand the consequences. This is why Russia
has tried to undermine and divide America. This is why China argues that it
offers a “new type of political party system”. When America fails to live up to
its ideals, it undermines the resolve in other nations to also pursue those
ideals and behave in the best interest of humanity.
America must seek to improve in principle and in practice
because it is the moral thing to do. We must avoid authoritarianism and its
offer of false social stability. India should be inspired by America, not China;
Europe should lean towards America, not Russia; Africa should find a role model
in America, not the Middle East. With good reason, they will not do so if American
society cannot lead by example – more efficient and effective government, more
ethical justice, fairer opportunity, more charitable care, a more trustworthy
public. When America vigorously pursues its ideals and improvement at home,
everyone benefits – we current Americans get a better system for ourselves,
non-Americans get an example of what works better, and the future inherits the
better system.
The Best Option
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried
in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or
all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of
Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to
time.
-- Winston Churchill, in the House of Commons of the
United Kingdom [1947/11/11]
This philosophy of liberty and equality, of inalienable
rights to life, freedom, pursuit of happiness, secular representative
democratic government, international cooperation, and rule of law for everyone is the only known foundation for multicultural peace – internal peace
against civil war, and external peace against international war. Historically
common alternative attempts at "peace" involved brutally enforced
conformity and genocide. The rights of minorities are the precious sacrament by
which peace is bought for all. The majority should always remember that it is
composed of minorities itself and that every nation is a minority of Earth.
It is essential to the world that the American experiment
succeeds, because the world is made of many different cultures, religions and
ethnic identities. As technology makes the world smaller, these cultures will
inevitably come into conflict, as they have throughout human history. If we
hope to have a world without war and without mutual annihilation, then we need
a working model for how to live together peacefully. The American Democratic
Republic is that model, and we cannot allow it to fail.
A Warning of the Alternative, and a Plea
We all have more at stake in the rules of the game than we do in the outcomes of the game. When that changes, that’s when you begin to lose democracy.
-- David Frum, in interview by Anna Maria Tremonti on CBC Radio [2017/02/02]
If the American Democratic Republic fails, I am pessimistic
that whatever comes next will embody the values with which this nation was
founded. This nation broadcast hope for all people when it denounced tyranny,
rejected slavery, delivered the world from Fascism, defended the world against
totalitarianism, rebuilt its enemies into friends and allies, and accepted
people of every race, creed, and origin as Americans, equal to all who came
before them.
Our execution has not been perfect, and our human pursuit of
our ideals has been even less so. We must aim to do much better in the future,
but no other values or system of government has brought so much peace and
prosperity to the world as American democracy.
If we cannot live and let live, if we fail at the hard work
of compromising such that we and our fellow citizens may freely choose how to
pursue happiness differently, then society will enter into a vicious downward spiral
of violence and retaliation which makes liberty, equality, and democracy
impossible to sustain.
We must govern without repression. We must win without
destroying the opposition. We must not abuse power by gerrymandering,
disenfranchising the opposition, harassing opponents through selective law
enforcement, or subverting the judicial system through partisan processes. This
is what it means to "play fair by the spirit of the rules" in a
democracy.
"Being peaceful" is less noteworthy when the
powerful majority does it, but it is not less important. "Being peaceful
in the face of incentives not to be" is the foundation of civilization.
The point here is not to convince national leaders of
anything. My hope is to convince normal
Americans to behave better than could be expected, because we need to behave
better than can be expected. Be respectful. Be skeptical and don't share outrageous
nonsense. Forgive neighbors, your fellow Americans, who read other news and
watch other media, even though we now have trouble agreeing on a shared,
objective reality. Trust each other and
each others' intentions to be good. This will be especially challenging in
the face of a plague of bad information from media companies who have failed to
live up to their newfound responsibilities, and weaponized mistrust wielded by
foreign adversaries and domestic partisans.
If we do not make our way back to being better Americans, then
others among us will follow the darker path to cycles of repression and
rebellion – partisan oppression of voting rights and against fair and equal
representation in government; protests in the form of strikes, sabotage, and arson;
suppression of media, discourse, and speech; riots and bombings; massacres and
brutality by law enforcement; assassinations, local uprisings, and revolts; use
of the military against civilians. It is a tragically well-traveled road in human
history. The United States of America is not immune – see Appendix 2. People
have been acting like they do not remember history. Understand that offending,
insulting, disrespecting, and repressing people eventually escalates to
violence.
We can and we must do better.
We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.
Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The
mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to
every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the
chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better
angels of our nature.
-- Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address
[1861/03/04]
Appendix 1
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable
Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed
preamble to the United States Declaration of
Independence [1776/07/04]
It is substantially true, that virtue or morality is a necessary
spring of popular government.
...
Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony
with all.
...
I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that
honesty is always the best policy.
-- George Washington, farewell address [1796/09/17]
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for
themselves
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Henry L. Pierce [1859]
our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation,
conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created
equal. ... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth.
-- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address [1863/11/19]
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
-- Emma Lazarus, "The New Colossus" sonnet
for the Statue of Liberty [1883]
We must dare to be great; and we must realize that greatness
is the fruit of toil and sacrifice and high courage.
-- Theodore Roosevelt, gubernatorial campaign address
[1898/10/05]
Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your
eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground.
-- Theodore Roosevelt, address at Groton School
[1904/05/24]
There is no good reason why we should fear the future, but
there is every reason why we should face it seriously, neither hiding from
ourselves the gravity of the problems before us nor fearing to approach these
problems with the unbending, unflinching purpose to solve them aright.
-- Theodore Roosevelt, inaugural address [1905/03/04]
the only thing we have to fear is fear itself
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), first inaugural
address [1933/03/04]
No democracy can long survive which does not accept as
fundamental to its very existence the recognition of the rights of its
minorities.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), letter to Walter
Francis White [1938/06/25]
Let us not be afraid to help each other — let us never forget
that government is ourselves and not an alien power over us. The ultimate
rulers of our democracy are not a President and Senators and Congressmen and
Government officials but the voters of this country.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR), address at Marietta,
Ohio [1938/07/08]
It isn't enough to talk about peace. One must believe in it.
And it isn't enough to believe in it. One must work at it.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, Voice of America broadcast
[1951/11/11]
A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes,
who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned
that there is both good and bad in all people and all things, and who walks
humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in
this world no one is all-knowing and therefore all of us need both love and
charity.
-- Eleanor Roosevelt, in You Learn by Living [1960]
Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can
do for your country.
-- John F. Kennedy, inaugural address [1961/01/20]
We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other
things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
-- John F. Kennedy, speech at Rice University
[1962/06/12]
Appendix 2
