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The stakes … are too high for government to be a spectator sport.

Barbara Jordan

How do we create a harmonious society out of so many kinds of people? The key is tolerance — the one value that is indispensable in creating community.
BARBARA JORDAN

Creating Equality Keys Tolerance
There is no executive order; there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.
BARBARA JORDAN

Law Order People
Fairness is an across-the-board requirement for all our interactions with each other …Fairness treats everbody the same.
BARBARA JORDAN

Boards Fairness Requirements
What we have to do is strike a balance between the idea that government should do everything and the idea, the belief, that government ought to do nothing. Strike a balance.
BARBARA JORDAN

Balance Government Ideas
Let each person do his or her part. If one citizen is unwilling to participate, all of us are going to suffer. For the American idea, though it is shared by all of us, is realized in each one of us.
BARBARA JORDAN

Citizens Ideas Suffering
We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.
BARBARA JORDAN

Innovation Order Party
The citizens of America expect more. They deserve and they want more than a recital of problems.
BARBARA JORDAN

America Citizens Want
For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.
BARBARA JORDAN

Distinction Immigration Law
I get from the soil and spirit of Texas the feeling that I, as an individual, can accomplish whatever I want to, and that there are no limits, that you can just keep going, just keep soaring. I like that spirit.
BARBARA JORDAN

Feelings Texas Want
But this is the great danger America faces. That we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual. Each seeking to satisfy private wants.
BARBARA JORDAN

America Cities Groups
If we promise as public officials, we must deliver. If we as public officials propose, we must produce.
BARBARA JORDAN

Politics Produce Promise
A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny.
BARBARA JORDAN

Destiny Equality Peace
The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.
BARBARA JORDAN

Court Lasts Protection
I have confidence that we can form this kind of national community.
BARBARA JORDAN

Community Form Kind
We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power; that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.
BARBARA JORDAN

Authority Believe People
I felt somehow for many years that George Washington and Alexander Hamilton just left me out by mistake. But through the process of amendment, interpretation, and court decision, I have finally been included in ‘We, the people.’
BARBARA JORDAN

Mistake People Years

The stakes … are too high for government to be a spectator sport.

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The stakes … are too high for government to be a spectator sport.

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