USA Moves From Individual Rights Toward Nationalism

Progressives believe that the direction American history should be one of increasing individual rights. We agree with diplomat and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Ralph Bunche when he said,

“In democracy the gap between ideal and practice must be constantly narrowed. For democracy, to prosper, or even to live, must ever be dynamic. It must move forward toward the goals of greater freedom, better life, fuller dignity for the people it serves. Any backward step, any encroachment upon the rights of democracy’s citizens, any violation of the dignity of the individual, any retreat in the well-being of the people strikes at the virility of the ideal and retards the course of human progress.”

We progressives agree with History professor Melvin Urofsky when he states, in The Rights of the People, published by the United States Department of State, “The Bill of Rights can be read as the definitive statement of that most American of values: the idea that the individual is prior to and takes precedence over any government.”

We are alarmed, however, to see that America’s history of increasing individual rights is now being eroded by a government run by right wing activists who believe in the nationalist principle that the government has the right to disregard individual rights in the name of security. Lawyers representing the American federal government recently wrote in a legal motion that “When the national security conflicts with an individual’s interest… the interests of the individual must give way.”

Americans should elect a progressive President in 2008 because we still believe that the history of the United States of America should be defined by the protection of individual rights, not the promotion of nationalist power. (Sources: The Rights of People, Melvin Urofsky, 2003; The Road to Peace, Ralph Bunche, 1954; Memorandum of Points and Authorities in Support of the Motion by Intervenor United States to Dismiss or, in the Alternative, for Summary Judgment in Civil Action No. 1:05-cv-01417-TSE-TRJ)

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