First and foremost EVERYONE COUNTS.
Women count, men count, poor people count, the homeless count, our political opponents count, christians count, muslims count, children count, immigrants, workers, millionaires, latinos, blacks, whites, friends, enemies. All americans, all the people of the world are of value as they are and that value is to be respected.
This does not mean we approve of all actions. We do not approve of murder, we do not approve of violence, we do not approve breaking faith, we do not approve of hatred nor intolerance nor cruelty. But we retain the capacity to hate the sin and love the sinner, to recognise that nothing can be done to take away the god given value of each individual human life.
Nor do we approve or accept all opinions. Truth and falsehood are not fashions, not optional extras. Truth is not even democratic, for it is not to be decided by the majority. In our search for truth we turn to those who are best trained, most widely knowedgable about the relevant evidence and most capable of its objective evaluation. There is no place for government or ideology to impose its views of what should be true on any american, especially not on our children. To the extent that we have knowledge of the world we must embrace it and teach our children to face the world honestly, without hiding away in wilful ignorance, confident of their own abilities and their own faith.
Our opponents divide the world into camps. They say "You are either with us or against us", they treat some people as worthless because their views are different. If you are gay you don't count, your suffering in being unable to share your life with your chosen partner doesn't matter. Your suffering at being unable to share the last moments of your life with your partner doesn't matter. If you oppose the war your suffering is not only derided but outright celebrated.
If you aren't the right type of christian, if you don't have enough money, if you aren't the right colour, your views, your suffering, your happiness, your life, just plain don't matter so much. We know thats the message from our opponents, we see it in the way they treat people. We refuse to lower ourselves to their standards.
Means not ends:
Since we believe everyone counts, it is harder for us to say what the goal of government is. What the ideal endpoint is. What we want society to look life.
Our opponents have no such difficulty. They want everyone going to the right church, not the church your conscience directs you to, but one chosen by them. They want you having the right sex, not the sex your own pursuit of happiness leads you to, one chosen by them. They want you to be the right colour, speak the right language, agree with the right people. These rights to be decided by them not by you.
We do not tell people what they should be, beyond requiring of each the care and consideration that allows others their same opportunity to live their lives. Our focus is on means not ends, the ends are set by you.
Honesty, transparency, openness. This are the fundamental means we use and require. We expect corporations to be run honestly, we expect their books to be available for public inspection. We expect government to be open. Decisions to be made not on the basis of hidden donations and secret deals but on grounds stated and defended in public.
We believe that the scrutiny of the people is the best safeguard against corruption. That it ensures that our organizations act to serve us and not to impose the views of a chosen few, nor even a chosen many.
The use of force:
We are prepared to use violence to prevent harm. We are prepared to defend ourselves. We are prepared to act with force to deliver freedom, to deliver to each person the possibilities and resources commensurate with the value in which we hold each and every human life. But we are not prepared to hate. Even while acting decisively and forcefully to oppose those who seek to harm us we will not hate our opponents. We will go on trying to understand and value those we oppose even as we strive to prevent their actions from harming ourselves or others.
America is now committed to a war:
That commitment may have been made by fools in the grip of an ideology that prides itself on having no contact with reality, but we are committed nonetheless. This does not excuse the commitment made by those who have thrown us into this destructive war it makes it worse. In forcing us to bear the burden of their stupidity, their blindness, their willful ignorance the instigators of the war in Iraq have imposed an obligation on all americans even those who opposed it. Whether that obligation to those, American and Iraqi, whose lives we have destroyed and whose lives we stand yet to destroy, is best served by leaving as quickly as possible, or carrying through the war with more insight and realistic commitment than those who started it is not a matter on which there is a unified answer.
What does unify Democrats is the commitment that whatever resolution we come to on the current war in Iraq, it must be made openly. On grounds that are open, insofar as they do not endanger lives, to public scrutiny, not because of secretive deals with corporations nor other private schemes. And it must be made from the basis of valuing the lives of the American soldiers and Iraqi citizens that the instigators of this war have endangered.