{"id":798562,"date":"2019-08-15T11:20:44","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T17:20:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369963"},"modified":"2019-08-15T11:20:44","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T17:20:44","slug":"opinion-susan-knopf-no-labels-justice-for-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/opinion-susan-knopf-no-labels-justice-for-all\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion | Susan Knopf: No labels, justice for all"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I think it\u2019s time we dispense with false flags of patriotism, like the Confederate flag, and we all line up under the Stars and Stripes. Can we please dispense with labels of liberal and conservative, gay and straight, pro-choice and pro-life, pro-gun and pro sensible gun control? Can we line up under one flag that has always meant \u201cjustice for all?\u201d<\/p>\n

Our nation\u2019s governance is not a football game. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell calls himself the \u201cgrim reaper,\u201d<\/a> as he kills off any idea that doesn\u2019t originate in his party this session. We can\u2019t run our nation\u2019s politics like a sports rivalry. We don\u2019t want winners and losers. We all want to prosper. We don\u2019t have to marginalize someone else to win. It\u2019s not winner-takes-all.<\/p>\n

Our president retweeted<\/a> a Terence Williams tweet implicating the Clintons involvement in the apparent jailhouse suicide of Jeffrey Epstein, multimillionaire accused of multiple counts of sex trafficking and sex with minors. The president\u2019s own counsel, Rudy Giuliani told The New York Times<\/a>, \u201cIt is best to wait for some key facts like the findings of the autopsy. Withholding judgment is the wisest course to follow.\u201d<\/p>\n

That didn\u2019t stop our spin-doctor U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr from commenting he\u2019s \u201cappalled and frankly angry\u201d<\/a> about the \u201cserious irregularities\u201d of Epstein\u2019s incarceration. Barr omits: Epstein was in federal custody, meaning Barr is ultimately responsible. He said the FBI and the inspector general are investigating. Maybe that\u2019s all he and President Donald Trump should have said as leaders, who are supposed to lead our nation, to pursue justice for all.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the president seems to think his job title is \u201cflamethrower in chief.\u201d He says anything to keep his base enraged and busy thinking about how great he is, rather than how his policies haven\u2019t done a thing to relieve their economic woes, pay their bills, create better jobs with better benefits, fix health care. Build that wall!<\/p>\n

There seems to be no question his inflammatory rhetoric<\/a> is killing Americans: Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. Last weekend in El Paso, Texas, and in Dayton, Ohio<\/a>. More than 250 dead this year in mass shootings.<\/p>\n

For the record, the Jewish Anti-Defamation League issued an advisory for Boulder. The Denver Post<\/a> reported a Boulder man was arrested for possessing child pornography. The suspect also allegedly published an online hunter\u2019s guide in January, targeting federal agencies, mosques and synagogues, but he wasn\u2019t charged.<\/p>\n

The president has redirected FBI efforts<\/a> away from domestic terrorism. The president\u2019s rhetoric elevates the white supremacist when he says after the killing of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, there were \u201cfine people\u201d<\/a> on both sides. He inflames the white nationalists with rhetoric about invading immigrants<\/a>. He directs the arrests of hard-working immigrants, employed here for more than a decade doing difficult, dangerous work in meat-processing plants<\/a>. Some of the tax-paying workers claimed they were legal residents. No notice was given, and no provision was made to care for dependent children left without adult supervision. Mississippi U.S. Rep. and Homeland Security Chairman Bennie Thompson<\/a> said the raid failed to follow standard procedures. He said, \u201cThat\u2019s really not who we are as Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

CNN reported<\/a> Jackson Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba told WJTV, \u201cI think that we truly have to question where the soul of our nation is at this point and time \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s the point. The Trump administration hails the sweep, considered the biggest single day roundup, with nearly 700 arrested in Mississippi. Many of us saw the images of crying children, and we felt this is not how we treat people. We don\u2019t treat a violent criminal\u2019s family this way. These people are at worst guilty of immigration infractions and using fake identities to get work. It\u2019s not exactly theft, rape or murder. If law enforcement calls that criminal activity, we really need to change our laws.<\/p>\n

David Brooks<\/a>, of the New York Times, said, \u201cWe need an uprising of decency!\u201d He calls for:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Unity: We\u2019re one people.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Honesty: We can\u2019t have democracy without truth.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Pluralism: We treasure people of all races and faiths.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Sympathy: We value those who are kind, especially to those who are suffering.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Opportunity: We want everybody to have a fair chance in life.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t need labels. We need to hold hands. We need to advocate for the weakest of our neighbors. We don\u2019t need to pay their bills, but neither can we throw up stumbling blocks to their earnest efforts to succeed. We can fix our immigration system without throwing hard-working neighbors into detention centers. We can process people at the border with dignity.<\/p>\n

We can fix our health care system, without partisan politics that do more to protect corporate America than our citizens. We can have sensible gun laws that protect our citizens and keep guns out of the hands of people publishing hateful manifestos online.<\/p>\n

We can do these things together, without labels, with justice for all.<\/p>\n

Susan Knopf\u2019s column \u201cFor The Record\u201d publishes Fridays in the Summit Daily News. Knopf has worn many hats in her career, including working as an award-winning journalist and certified ski instructor. She moved to Silverthorne in 2013 after vacationing in Summit County since the 1970s. Contact her at sdnknopf@gmail.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think it\u2019s time we dispense with false flags of patriotism, like the Confederate flag, and we all line up under the Stars and Stripes. Can we please dispense with labels of liberal and conservative, gay and straight, pro-choice and pro-life, pro-gun and pro sensible gun control? Can we line up under one flag that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798562","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 03:59:41","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}