Unifying values of America
- by Dustin Woods
Visionary Columnist
What does it mean to you to be an American? I think it means upholding certain universal principles, ones that our founders wrote out for all to see as a national binding force.
Americans desire universal principles such as unalienable rights, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This government derives its power from the consent of the people, a democracy, justice, the rule of law, minority rights and freedom of religion. These are a non-exhaustive list, but they are core American values.
Our government relies on its citizens to give it the moral authority to do the good we require of it. We need to vote for people who are faithful to our pluralistic system, where everyone has influence, and no one gets absolute authority. Checks and balances are critical for our system to continue to be a democratic one that accounts for the will and needs of the masses instead of the personal avarice of corrupt public officials.
Consider the efforts in 2020 to overthrow the duly elected President of the United States that culminated in America's first-ever violence-marred transfer of power on January 6, 2021. Forces at every level of one political party made efforts to overturn the will of the voters and install illegal electors to the Electoral College.
Their efforts have resulted in felony indictments of current and former Republican party officials, up to and including the current GOP presumptive nominee for president, who has already been found guilty of 34 felonies. What American value are these undemocratic efforts to overturn the will of the voters upholding? It's a pure power grab by people who fear they will be treated the way they treated others when they had power.
Money that is being donated to the GOP is being funneled to Trump's multiple legal defenses. One legal case this money supports has taken an argument all the way to the Supreme Court, claiming that the president has the power to kill or order to be killed any American they choose. This power includes any of their political opponents, and there is no way that criminal charges can be brought against that president unless a political impeachment occurs first.
The GOP is actively engaged in the creation of an American king by using their conservative court to carve out a power that any other president has never needed to do their job except for two GOP ones, Nixon and Trump. I can't fathom a less American proposal. I fear what any president would do with such a power, but I know what a GOP one would do with it and as a gay man, I can't fathom it being good for any minority community or vocal opposition to theocratic rule.
The best way to get back to the American values that bring us together as a nation, the values that pull people to our country from all over the globe to be under the light of Lady Liberty's torch, is to completely and utterly reject at every level of the ballot box the political party devoted obtaining power at any cost.
This group is working to actively create a king, the cadre enacting racial gerrymanders, the faction planning to send the military into cities across America to round up and perform mass deportations. They are a movement working to eradicate women's bodily autonomy, the association of book banning and history erasure. This coalition will enforce gender conformity through bathroom bills and trans healthcare bans. They are the cabal against contraception, the junta of judicial denigration, the alliance who think January 6 was a proper political act and call for pardons of the violent felons who perpetrated the most violent riot in recent history.
Through Election Day, I beg you to speak to your friends and family about the values you think bind our nation together.
The Gayly. 07/12/2024 @ 2:55 p.m. CST.