"This is not who we are" is not a literal statement. I wouldnt make any sense taken as one, since its used in response to news of actual events rather than hypotheticals, and if taken literally, it would be very similar to "I am not doing what I am currently doing" which is paradoxical.

Rather, it is a statement to others of ones group that their behavior is problematic and therefore that they should stop it, using an emotional appeal that invokes values those problematic members of the group are expected to profess to have.

Some of us knew that the national myth was a myth, but aspired for it to be the truth. Others professed to know it as truth and toiled for it to remain myth.

How is this a comic strip?

Most criminals are not born; they are made....

What the State really punishes in a criminal is often its own neglect, its own failure to do its duty to the citizen.

William Randolph Hearst

Honest question, which civil rights first originated in America?

As in, what freedoms and liberties are uniquely American in origin and didn't instead start with the British / French / Austrians, etc. etc?

The only one I can think of is for America to be free of British rule, that's about it.

Whenever Americas say that 'they want freedom' ..... they more often than not mean to say that they want freedom for a very specific portion of their population only and not for the whole.