SOL17 DoodleaDay Stand Up

Do not make

the mistake of thinking

that you have to agree

with people and their beliefs

to defend them from

injustice.

~ Bryant McGill in his Preamble to the Voice of Reason

What is the DoodleADay today? Our thirteenth DoodleADay is to doodle a quote from someone we admire. I wanted to continue on my theme of social justice, so I had so many quotes to choose from — the founding fathers, Martin Luther King, JR, Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Geraldine Ferraro, Rachel Carson, Sandra Day O’Connor, Margaret Mead, etc.

But one thing I worry about is hesitancy. When should we speak up? For that, I found Bryant McGill’s quote most important. If we don’t speak up for the human rights of all of us, then change won’t occur.

Bryant McGil also said in this Preamble to his book, The Voice of Reason:

Without love and compassion, nothing is sacred. No marketplace, free or otherwise, is good when it fails to consider the basic human state of needs at every stage of life. No political body is sacred, sustainable or under protection, which allows the exploitation of its people, or capitalization from the subdued life-force of its weakest members. No nation’s flag is great or glorious if it flies over the weak and downtrodden, even if they raise and protect it out of misguided allegiance. No belief or idea is sacred, unless it treats all people as sacred. And no construct on earth will stand, that does not stand for the least among them, as their advocate and humble servant. ~Bryant McGill

I’ve not found any content related to our current dilemmas from Bryant, but it’s important to put this time in perspective, and why it is important to stand together and speak up in whatever ways we can.

I know someone I truly admire who did fight for injustice: Abraham Lincoln.

And he said this:

But what is even more important is why he said this — and how it reflects on our current two-party system and the Democratic and Republic Parties as they stray from the core principles laid out by Thomas Jefferson, a founding father who wrote, with discussion with others:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

~Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson

His emphasis was the people, above property; people, as the government. How far have we strayed from these founding ideas?

Read the letter written by Abraham Lincoln to H.L.Pierce in 1859: Click to Letter and form your own thoughtful conclusions.

Hopefully, these quotes may guide us. My elementary and high school year history classes during the 50s and 60s engrained these founding fathers and their ideals and ideas into my beliefs of our country. Do you see the infringement today by our leaders– to put profit and their religious rules above the people — all the people– and their rights and freedoms? I think instead of #resist we should #standup !

Freedom is nothing if it is only your rights you support.

Abraham Lincoln, on Saturday Evening, July 10, 1858, at Chicago, Illinois, said:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Freedom rings true

to me and to you,

a compromise

at times must do

For yours to be

And mine to be too.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Part of Slice of Life 2017 by The Two Writing Teachers

Part of DoodleaDay by Royan Lee— today- a quote from someone you admire

Today I doodled to Ani DiFranco‘s Paradigm