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.
当然，对于作为最高权力的白宫讲坛，其权力应该有所限制。有时只有法律才能充分保护我们的价值观，特别是当我们社会中弱者的权利和机遇受到威胁的时候。当然，我们在努力结束种族歧视中一直如此；和道德规劝同样重要的是以布朗诉托皮卡教育局案为高潮的最高法院案件、1964年的《民权法案》和1965年的《选举权法案》，在民权运动时期美国人思想的脱胎换骨的过程中，它们最终摧垮种族歧视并迎来种族关系新时代。有关这些法律的辩论正在进行的时候，有些人主张政府不应该干预市民社会，没有法律可以将白人和黑人联系在一起。听到这些观点，金博士回答道，“法律不能使别人爱我，但是法律可以阻止别人对我动私刑，这或许是真的，我想这也非常重要。”
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.
我们有时既需要文化转变又需要政府行动——一种是价值观的改变，一种是政策的改变——来创建我们想要的那种社会。内城区学校的情况就是个恰当的例子。父母如果没有不遗余力地给孩子灌输努力工作和延迟享乐的价值观，那么世上所有的金钱都不能提高孩子的成绩。但是，破烂危险的学校里，设备过时，教师所学和所教不符，如果我们作为社会宣称，穷孩子在这样的学校里会发挥自己的潜力，那么我们就是在对孩子撒谎，对自己撒谎。我们就是在背叛自己的价值观。
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.
我想这就是使我成为一名民主党人的原因之一——这种思想即是，我们共同的价值观，我们彼此的责任感和社会团结不但应该体现在基督教教堂、清真寺或犹太教会；不但应该体现在我们居住的街区、工作的地点，或我们的家里，而且应该遍及政府内部。
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