LETTER: We stand together for the common good
Each generation of Americans is tested by a crisis of faith in the republic and the challenge of holding fast to the principles that define our noble experiment. Our nation is now faced with the challenge of an ever widening division of our collective being and the prospect of creating irreparable wounds inflicted by an administration that seeks to dominate through fear, oppression and intimidation. Such is the goal of this administration to hold onto singular power by any means that it attempts to undermine the institutions that guard our democracy.
Many voices in our nation have remained silent for too long relying on a blind faith that has always protected us from the evil of tyranny and holding to a belief that good will triumph without the necessary effort required of all citizens to protect the safety and liberty of all. At this moment our patriotism demands that we rise from the comfort of apathy and take action to ensure that our nation continue to be guided by a sense of decency and to renounce the abhorrent ideologies subtly put forth by the current administration and which have no home in either major political party.
On Sept. 29, the president of the United States, on a global stage, silently acquiesced to the notion of violent confrontations and lawless vigilantism of extremist groups. The recklessness of this attitude would only be made greater by the negligence of the populace in not responding in a full throated repudiation of this hideous impulse.
The implicit favoritism of one side in the hypothetical equation could not have been more pronounced and it was finally a clarion call for all people of good moral character to soundly reject the notion of placing one group of Americans in a superior position to another in direct contradiction to our sacred founding documents.
Let there be no hesitation in allowing this moment to bind us together again as citizens for the common good. Let this be the incentive for us to once again not only recite but also live our most revered words: One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
We, the undersigned, do hereby pledge to do all that is lawfully necessary to maintain a peaceful republic and to proscribe the concept of racial superiority in these United States.
Joe Manning
Washington councilman
Dr. Andrew Goudy
President, Washington NAACP
John Henninger
Chairman of Democrats for Action, Responsibility and Truth
Shawn Renari
Washington County Democratic Committee