Letter to the Editor

To the Editor:

Many years ago, in Junior High School civics class, the teacher posed a question that has lingered in my mind ever since: he asked, “Is the United States a land governed by laws or is it a land governed by men?”

The United States of America was forged in a bitter revolution from the tyranny of King George and Great Britain. Our founding document, the 1776 Declaration of Independence, set forth an aspirational guiding philosophy for the new nation: a nation governed by laws formulated by the governed, in which all men have an inalienable right to freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Although far from a realization, the new nation was set on a course towards achievement: a course to form a more perfect union.

The Constitution established the rules of governance, and the Bill of Rights protected citizens from government overreach. The “Trail of Tears”, slavery, Jim Crow, women’s suffrage, Japanese American internment, and Civil Rights are markers on the route to a more perfect union. These markers are rooted in bigotry, prejudice, discrimination, and greed, all of which are antithetical to the vision expressed by Thomas Jefferson for a self-governing people with inalienable rights.

In the arc of American history, we have recognized these faults and have inexorably striven to reconcile them with Jefferson’s vision. We can all be proud of the progress we have made toward a more perfect union—until now.

The ideals of our founding fathers, encoded in our constitution and laws of the land, are being dashed like a China cup on the marble floors of government. For the first time in my long life, I fear for our country; my resolute pride in being an American is fading.

As a child of WWII, I believed that the men and women who fought that terrible war to subdue the totalitarian dictatorships of Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan were on the side of good and defenders of freedom and justice. I was impressed by American soldiers handing out chocolate bars and comforting terrified children in the streets of war-torn Europe. I was infused with lifelong pride in a nation that went to war to defend American ideals, and, after the war, not with retribution but with the Marshall Plan, the GI Bill, the United Nations, NATO, and USAID, which provided life-saving policies and programs throughout the world. This is the America that fostered and nourished pride.

This America of my past, founded on an idea, is being torn asunder by governance of greed, power, fear, retribution, bigotry, rudeness, and discrimination. Armed military are in the streets of our cities, retribution is being taken against political foes and opposition political parties, and taxing the poorest among us (tariffs). Perhaps the most egregious and insidious are the incessant false and misleading statements designed to undermine or subvert longstanding institutions, including the FBI, DOJ, DOE, CDC, Department of Education, NOAA, NIH, and EPA, among others. It is not surprising that these attacks on our institutions are occurring; what is surprising is their intensity, speed, and viciousness.

The threat to our democracy is indeed from within, but not from our citizens, but from our government. Regardless of political persuasion, who among us does not support the preservation of a government based on ideals that proffer self-rule, freedom, liberty, justice, and the pursuit of happiness?

My Junior High civics teacher would be appalled by the state of governance today. We are headlong into a state governed by men, not laws; it is arbitrary, capricious, and self-serving.

At the close of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin was reportedly asked, “What kind of government do we have?” and he replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”

Can we keep it?

Lauren Schroeder

Poland, OH

(formerly of Eagle Bend)