L.J. Schaffnit: Have we abandoned values of love, compassion, humility, integrity, justice?

To The Daily Sun,

“A city upon a hill”, once used to describe the United States and the beacon of hope it projected to the world and the disenfranchised, is now being dismantled, brick by brick, by Donald Trump and his administration. Being misled by Trump lies, we are sacrificing our liberties and learning to our sorrow that deceit, mockery, and tyranny are our reward. As a nation, we must take stock as to who we are and what we are to become. Will we hold that “all men” (mankind) are created equal and should enjoy the rights of, “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”? Have we abandoned our Judeo-Christian values of love, compassion, humility, integrity and justice, or do we descend, as this administration has, into a dark marriage of power and wealth?

As a nation we should be concerned about the unbridled nationalism that has created our civil alienation, and will never adhere itself to our U.S. Constitution. Trump’s ideological minions don’t care about democracy, they just want to “fix” whatever they see that doesn’t fit their own idea of “American”, regardless of the civil liberties our Constitution guarantees to us all. We must rediscover America’s founding principles that have guided us for centuries: popular sovereignty, limited government, separation of powers, individual rights, and that the Constitution serves as the supreme law of the land. As long as we remember these guiding principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.

This should not be about Republican verses Democrat. This is not about liberal verses conservative. Regardless of readers' views on various issues, this is a fight for the heart and soul of American democracy — whether American democracy survives.

L.J. Schaffnit

Gilmanton