“We cannot buy or force the respect of other nations. We can only earn it. We can show we understand their problems while working on our own. We can recall that nations are collections of people, not markers on an international game board, and that the measuring stick for our actions must therefore be the effect on people’s lives within the United States and abroad.”
Our Quote of the Week reminds us that how a leader treats people within a country’s borders has a profound impact on how the rest of the world will see that country. It calls attention to the power of leading by example.
Taken from the Democratic foreign policy statement that was part Sargent Shriver’s 1976 Presidential campaign, our Quote of the Week makes an important link between foreign and domestic policy. The quote shows Sargent Shriver’s focus on people as the central priority for a leader, and it stresses that nothing can bring about international respect and collaboration like valuing and empowering people, whoever those people may be and wherever they may come from.
We invite you to read Sargent Shriver’s entire statement on Democratic foreign policy. A recent discovery from our archives, it presents a thorough assessment of the issues a country as influential as the United States should consider when protecting its national interests, and hence, its people. Among the issues that Sargent Shriver covers in the statement are the fact that leading by instilling fear can only cause dysfunction; that stressing our common existence is crucial when dealing with international issues; that our contemporary challenges, which he lists as “world recession and inflation, food and fuel distribution, environmental decay and population growth” are rapidly evolving and affect the international community as a whole; and that the United States must do better at safeguarding democracy. Although many of the geopolitical details in the statement are different in 2019, the statement is strikingly relevant for us today. As we observe the actions of our current leaders and assess 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates, let us remember these principles, and let us choose our leaders accordingly in 2020.
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