NEVADA CITY, Calif. November 14, 2016 – We don’t assault women – or anyone.
We’re better than that.
We don’t ridicule people with disabilities.
We’re better than that.
We don’t threaten people we disagree with by implying they should be shot.
We’re better than that.
And we don’t incite a mob to go after them and hurt them.
We’re better than that.
We don’t disparage people because of their body size and shape, gender, the color of their skin, their religion (if any), their accent, their age, their…
We’re working on that, we’re becoming better at it and we’re not stopping now.
We don’t put entire populations in camps or boxcars or build walls around them.
We’ve done that and we’re ashamed of it and we’ve learned. We’re better than that and we promise we won’t allow it to ever happen again.
We have compassion for Ayn Rand and her traumatic experiences but we do not approve of institutionalized mean-spiritedness and greed. We don’t believe the sick should go untreated and the hungry unfed just so the rich can get richer.
We’re better than that.
We educate ourselves and our children; we embrace science and reason and enjoy listening to and learning from different opinions. We don’t take pride in ignorance or fear, we recognize and reject demagoguery. We stand up to bullies. We ask for support when we’re afraid and we don’t look the other way when our brothers and sisters are being attacked.
We’re better than that.
We do not judge people who love each other –
We celebrate them. They are our joy and our hope and our future.
When we show our pride we don’t do it to diminish others. We don’t need to. The lower their bar, the higher our aim.
We proudly proclaim: We’re better than that.