The Balkanization of the media means that nobody is having a single conversation with a single set of agreed-upon facts and assumptions the way you had as recently as the 90s.
Barack ObamaLike no other illness, AIDS tests our ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes - to empathize with the plight of our fellow man. While most would agree that the AIDS orphan or the transfusion victim or the wronged wife contracted the disease through no fault of their own, it has too often been easy for some to point to the unfaithful husband or the promiscuous youth or the gay man and say This is your fault. You have sinned. I don't think that's a satisfactory response. My faith reminds me that we all are sinners.
Barack ObamaI've just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.
Barack ObamaAll of these different strands in me - the black, the white, the African - all of that has contributed directly to my success because when I meet people, I see a piece of myself in them. And maybe they see a piece of themselves in me.
Barack ObamaWe, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense.
Barack ObamaThey will tell you that the Americans who sleep in the streets and beg for food got there because theyโre all lazy or weak of spirit. That the inner-city children who are trapped in dilapidated schools canโt learn and wonโt learn and so we should just give up on them entirely. That the innocent people being slaughtered and expelled from their homes half a world away are somebody elseโs problem to take care of.
Barack Obama