Nothing less than our survival.
Aldo Leopold Shack and Restored Prairie. Photo by Susan Feathers
The rights of individuals as written in the U.S. Constitution and a system of secular governance and freedom of religion are the principles at the heart of the American Republic.
Our European ancestors and writers of the Constitution had all lived under the tyranny of kings and queens and the Church, often in cahoots with an authoritarian government.
The Constitution was written to free individuals from those bonds to determine their own lives within a system of laws and justice. Protestant or Catholic, Jew or Muslim, atheist or agnostic, Calvanist or Puritan, Amish or Mennonite, and so on… each with the freedom to pursue their religious lives. The Bill of Rights freed citizens to determine for themselves how to live their lives. As long as a citizen’s choices did not infringe on another’s, they were free to pursue ideas and courses of action to develop happiness and meaning. Actions, property, social norms were subject to laws that protect individuals’ freedoms.
This is what is unique about American governance: at its core is the belief that all persons are created equal.
At the heart of the MAGA Republican movement is the rejection of this principle. All men are not equal and, America should be a Christian country.
UNDERSTAND THAT THE INTENT OF THE MAGA REPUBLICANS IS TO END THE FORM OF GOVERNANCE ESTABLISHED IN THE CONSTITUTION.
What are the actions promised by the candidate they support:
- End all restrictions on oil and gas development;
- Slash and Burn the institutions of the Republic and replace them with an authoriarian governing system;
- Further suppress women’s reproductive rights including birth control;
- Rid the government of environmental and climate change experts, departments and regulations associated with them. We are free to kill ourselves, our families, fellow human, plant and animal lives on planet Earth.
- Support authoritarian leaders and governments. Putin and Russia, Kim Jong Un and North Korea; Viktor Orbán and Hungary; Xi Jingping and China. All enemies of democracy.
ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION? THIS IS NOT A NORMAL ELECTION. THIS IS ABOUT THE LOSS OF OUR DEMOCRACY AND OUR WAY OF LIFE!
Listen to historian Heather Cox Richardson and historian Jeffrey Rosen interviewed by Ken Burns. Richardson published Democracy Awakening and Jeff Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness this year. They remind us what democracy is and how we always agreed about these principles among our political parties. We debated how those principles should be carried out and protected, generation after generation. This was the American Project. Now, one party intends to destroy these governing principle for an autocracy.
Susan Feathers 