To: President Donald Trump, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
A Fairness Manifesto
Despite the statistics, we are not in a class war.
Despite geography, we are not Red and Blue states.
Despite the hype, we are not smug elites versus arrogant bumpkins.
Instead, we are united. We are united in the call for fairness.
Fairness is the foundational principle of democracy.
Fairness can shake up our party alliances and loosen the sclerosis of our political system.
Fairness is behind diverse calls for reform, and thus fairness can help us come together in common cause for the benefit of us all.
When the 99% complain about the distribution of goods produced by the work of all, their complaint is about fairness.
Fairness stands behind campaign finance reform; accusations that the press is biased; funding for education; and disputes over financial reforms, the tax code, offshore accounts, and collective bargaining, as well as entitlement programs and Affirmative Action.
Fairness doesn’t belong to one political party, class, region, religion, race, or gender. It can help us see past the false divisions we often create among ourselves.
Fairness ought to guide our debates and serve as a measure of our success.
Please help us all get past the divisive language of the class and culture wars and join me in the call for fairness by adding your name to this manifesto and passing it on.
Why is this important?
It is about promoting fairness as a criteria to get past the culture and class wars and unite us for needed political reform. It is committing to the principle and using it as the criteria, even if we still disagree about particular programs or policies, rather than employing more divisive language such as that used in the culture wars and class warfare.