Of course, there are limits to the power of the bully pulpit. Sometimes only the law can fully vindicate our values, particularly when the rights and opportunities of the powerless in our society are at stake. Certainly this has been true in our efforts to end racial discrimination; as important as moral exhortation was in changing hearts and minds of white Americans during the civil rights era, what ultimately broke the back of Jim Crow and ushered in a new era of race relations were the Supreme Court cases culminating in Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. As these laws were being debated, there were those who argued that government should not interject itself into civil society, that no law could force white people to associate with blacks. Upon hearing these arguments, Dr. King replied, "It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.
當然，對于作為最高權力的白宮講壇，其權力應該有所限制。有時只有法律才能充分保護我們的價值觀，特別是當我們社會中弱者的權利和機遇受到威脅的時候。當然，我們在努力結束種族歧視中一直如此；和道德規勸同樣重要的是以布朗訴托皮卡教育局案為高潮的最高法院案件、1964年的《民權法案》和1965年的《選舉權法案》，在民權運動時期美國人思想的脫胎換骨的過程中，它們最終摧垮種族歧視并迎來種族關系新時代。有關這些法律的辯論正在進行的時候，有些人主張政府不應該干預市民社會，沒有法律可以將白人和黑人聯系在一起。聽到這些觀點，金博士回答道，“法律不能使別人愛我，但是法律可以阻止別人對我動私刑，這或許是真的，我想這也非常重要。”
Sometimes we need both cultural transformat and government action-a change in values and a change in policy-to promote the kind of society we want. The state of our inner-city schools is a case in point. All the money in the world won't boost student achievement if parents make no effort to instill in their children the values of hard work and delayed gratification. But when we as society pretend that poor children will fulfill their potential in dilapidated, unsafe schools without dated equipment and teachers who aren't trained in the subjects they teach, we are perpetrating lie on these children, and on ourselves. We are betraying our values.
我們有時既需要文化轉變又需要政府行動——一種是價值觀的改變，一種是政策的改變——來創建我們想要的那種社會。內城區學校的情況就是個恰當的例子。父母如果沒有不遺余力地給孩子灌輸努力工作和延遲享樂的價值觀，那么世上所有的金錢都不能提高孩子的成績。但是，破爛危險的學校里，設備過時，教師所學和所教不符，如果我們作為社會宣稱，窮孩子在這樣的學校里會發揮自己的潛力，那么我們就是在對孩子撒謊，對自己撒謊。我們就是在背叛自己的價值觀。
That is one of the things that makes me a Democrat, I suppose, this idea that our communal values, our sense of mutual responsibility and social solidarity, should express themselves not just in the church or the mosque or the synagogue; not just on the blocks where we live, in the places where we work, or within our own families; but also through our government.
我想這就是使我成為一名民主黨人的原因之一——這種思想即是，我們共同的價值觀，我們彼此的責任感和社會團結不但應該體現在基督教教堂、清真寺或猶太教會；不但應該體現在我們居住的街區、工作的地點，或我們的家里，而且應該遍及政府內部。
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