Discuss Amongst Yourselves

A nation can handle the legitimate passionate outcries of those whose lives have been drastically altered by Hurricane Katrina only if we also have nurtured a public culture in which there is a reasonable discussion of the basic goals of civil society. If we now turn to public debates about Supreme Court nominees that echo the understandably angry tones of the desperate folks in Mississippi and Louisiana, we will have failed significantly as a democratic culture....

There has never been a time when it was more important for our nation to take an honest look at itself, reach across the ideological barriers we have erected, and find new ways of living together in some semblance of order.

-- Richard Mouw [via beliefnet]