We’ve had our issues with John McCain over the years (see “Country first–but first” and “Bad History: John McCain as Holden Caulfield”) but we heard an excerpt from his new memoir, The Restless Wave, of one of the chapters he read as an audio book on the radio and we were stirred:
Before I leave, I’d like to see our politics begin to return to the purposes and practices that distinguish our history from the history of other nations. I’d like to see us recover our sense that we are more alike than different. We’re citizens of a republic made of shared ideals forged in a new world to replace the tribal enmities that tormented the old one. Even in times of political turmoil such as these, we share that awesome heritage and the responsibility to embrace it. Whether we think each other right or wrong in our views on the issues of the day, we owe each other our respect, as so long as our character merits respect, and as long as we share for all our differences for all the rancorous debates that enliven and sometimes demean our politics, a mutual devotion to the ideals our nation was conceived to uphold that all are created equal and liberty and equal justice are the natural rights of all. Those rights inhabit the human heart, and from there though they may be assailed, they can never be wrenched. I want to urge Americans for as long as I can to remember that this shared devotion to human rights is our truest heritage and our most important loyalty.
That is advice we would like to see all Americans take to heart, as we do. There’s little we can add to this statement. Instead, we’ll be uncharacteristically short and close with one more quote from McCain:
Moral values are not conceptual artifacts, to be manipulated at will and imposed by fiat; they live and thrive in the midst of interconnected practices and historically validated norms.
In other words, that’s the hard work that makes America great, when it is great. Let’s all keep our shoulders to that wheel.
The Historic Present 