After the election, America needs to do four things:
1) Public Service. Re-commit ourselves to the honor and privilege of public service. Understanding the strong ethical requirements of public service that is primarily mission as well as job. Your personal benefit is not economic, it is the awareness that your efforts have made your community a better place. Helping our communities become more livable. Our families’ future more brighter.
2) Public Safety. We commit ourselves to an ultimate type of public service by keeping our communities safe. Our schools safe. Our homes and futures free from fear. Police and Fire personnel generally are the most visible representatives for public safety, yet we live in a nation where the public trust in our peace officers has suffered greatly. Now, is not the time to look back in nostalgia for Andy Griffith or Don Knotts.
How can we be safe if those entrusted with our safety are on the firing line from both liberals and conservatives. More police are shot because more people have guns. One must ask yourself the question: Are our police officers and fire personnel safer because more people have guns? Police officers need to be supported and should be the only ones packing heat in our communities to insure the public safety. Politicizing fear and demonizing difference separates us as a nation and a family. Yes, there are bad cops, however, police must operate today on the premise that everyone is carrying a gun, even children, and, it only takes a split second to kill someone often of color. Standing your ground is meaningless when everyone is afraid of each other and everyone feels they need a gun to protect themselves.
3) Public Health. Commit ourselves to keeping water and air safe. Our institutions in our community thriving and healthy. Making healthcare accessible to all, particularly the elderly and children. Preventative health initiatives that regulate sugar and fat as a threat to public health, safety, and our welfare along with tobacco, alcohol, and firearms. When all have the capacity to kill and maim everyone else, including their neighbors, the health of the community has been severely compromised. Mutually assured destruction worked until the cost of building fortresses and walls no longer were effective deterrents. Walls have doors. Traditional threats to the health and welfare of our community need to be re-evaluated and assessment robust. Future public health threats are not known today. Health challenges may be global in nature and need global response. We need safe food. Food that does not debilitate or paralyze us. Food for sustenance and not as the result of addiction to sugar.
4) Public Education. Just as there is a human right to dignity, to be respected, and equality, there is a human right to clean water, safe communities and schools. The right to read and write, to speak and to lead, to serve and protect; all need a foundation of a basic education amidst culture and tradition. Education about our history and legacy that must be cherished in a democracy and maintained. We must commit to revaluing education to improve our lives and not devalued by those who feel an educated body politic only questions authority.
If we devote ourselves to these four basic public commitments, all society will be improved and social justice championed and embraced. Alongside the Four Freedoms enshrined asFreedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear, and Freedom of Speech. That is our blueprint for hope. That is what we hope continues to be called: "America". And, that hope is sacred.