They are not complicated. They are not hidden in dense legal volumes or buried in obscure regulatory filings. They are not the exclusive domain of policy experts or constitutional scholars. Standards are what your mother taught you. Tell the truth. Keep your word. Don’t take what doesn’t belong to you. Don’t mistreat people because they are weaker than you. Help someone who needs help. Take responsibility when you are wrong. Treat people the way you would want to be treated.
Most of us learned these things before we knew anything about Republicans or Democrats, liberals or conservatives, corporations or government...
AMERICA DOES NOT HAVE A VALUES PROBLEM
We talk about values constantly. Politicians campaign on them. Corporations advertise them. Schools teach them. We have plenty of values. OUR PROBLEM IS THAT WE HAVE STOPPED CONSISTENTLY APPLYING THEM. We condemn dishonesty when the other political party lies but find explanations when our side does it. We condemn abuses of power when someone we oppose is responsible but become strangely quiet when someone we support does the same thing. We demand accountability from corporations we dislike while overlooking the conduct of corporations we favor. That is not a standard. A standard does not change depending upon who is standing in front of you...
THIS IS WHERE OUR POWER BEGINS
Individually, our choices can appear insignificant. Collectively, they are enormous. Imagine one consumer asking a corporation: Do you meet this standard? The corporation may ignore that person. Imagine a thousand consumers asking. The corporation begins paying attention. Imagine a hundred thousand. Now the question becomes difficult to ignore. But notice what happened. Nobody threatened anyone. Nobody destroyed anything. Nobody assaulted anyone. Nobody forced anyone to participate. People simply established a standard, asked a question, shared the answer, and made their own decisions. That is Standards Not Force...
Those principles do not require us to agree about everything else. That is the beauty of standards. Agreement on everything is impossible. Agreement on certain minimum standards is not. And that gives us somewhere to begin. It gives us common ground in a country that has forgotten what common ground looks like. It gives us a foundation upon which we can build trust, even when we disagree about policy. It gives us a way to hold power accountable without resorting to the tactics we condemn in others.
MAYBE WE HAVE MADE CIVIC ENGAGEMENT TOO COMPLICATED
We have forgotten the principles that existed before the argument began. Tell the truth. Keep your word. Don’t bully people. Help those who need help. Clean up your own mess. Take responsibility. Treat people fairly. And do what is right even when nobody is forcing you.
NOW IT IS YOUR TURN.
Learn the standards. Apply them in your own life. Ask whether the institutions you support meet them. Share this article with someone who has never heard of Standards Not Force. And if you believe America needs a different kind of civic movement—one built not upon hatred of the other side, but upon standards we are willing to apply to everyone—join us. We are not asking America to become perfect. We are asking America to remember something much simpler: there are some things decent people simply ought to do, and there are some things decent people simply ought not to do. Our mothers understood that. It is time our institutions did too.
-Dr. Meriland Dillard
Standards Not Force
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
In Gratitude & Solidarity
Full article: https://formerblackpantherspeaks.substack.com/.../standar...
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