Our core beliefs are the same core beliefs on which our country was founded. We believe in our rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. We believe in equal justice for all. We do not tolerate discrimination of any kind. We believe in ENTIRE Constitution and its Amendments, not just the parts we like.
But We don’t believe in tax and spend. We don’t believe Education is a right. We don’t believe health care is a right. We don’t believe that the rich aren’t paying their “fair share” when they in fact provide most of the tax dollars that funds our government.
We DO believe in personal rights. But, with great rights come great responsibilities. We all must remember that our individual rights end where someone else’s begin. And that’s not easy. This is where the current leaders and voices of Republican Party have jumped off the track.
Even though I don’t believe in many of Clinton’s policies of tax and spend, rights to education and health care, and her distorted belief that the rich are evil and not paying their fair share, these are minor issues when compared to Trump’s desire to deny our core rights and beliefs to millions. It is far better to give one more than what he is entitled than to deny one rights to which he is entitled.
We cannot stand on our Pledge to a Flag that guarantees liberty and justice for all, and then turn away those seeking liberty and justice because there might be a few wolves among the sheep. Just in the last 100 years we have gone to war at least six times to protect those whose freedoms and liberties were threatened. More than 20 MILLION Americans served during those wars, and almost HALF A MILLION Americans gave their lives to protect the freedoms of peoples who could not protect themselves. Ben Franklin said that those who sacrifice liberty for safety deserve neither. But Trump has campaigned on a policy of doing just that. He wants to turn away hundreds of thousands oppressed and displaced Syrians because there might be a few terrorists hidden among them. That is an insult to all those who fought and died to give us our liberties, and to all the others who fought and died to protect the liberties of our oppressed brothers in foreign lands.
We are all immigrants to this country. We all came here looking for a better life for ourselves and our families. America is the land of opportunity. Yet closing our borders to those who seek our freedoms and opportunities goes against our very core rights of Life, Liberty, and Justice for All. I am NOT advocating tearing down the border fences and allowing anyone free access at any place and any time. But there needs to be an easy, fair, and quick way for those who want to come here and live the American Dream to do so. When the waiting list to get in this country can be more than 20 YEARS, there is clearly a problem. But, regardless of how they got here, we have millions of people living here now that are honest, hard-working people who just want to live under the freedoms that our Constitution provides. To deport them denies them the very freedoms that we so proudly profess to ensure. Theodore Roosevelt said it best in a letter to the American Defense Society in 1919:
“We should insist that if the immigrant who comes here does in good faith become an American and assimilates himself to us he shall be treated on an exact equality with every one else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed or birth-place or origin.
But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an American and nothing but an American. If he tries to keep segregated with men of his own origin and separated from the rest of America, then he isn’t doing his part as an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. . . We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding-house; and we have room for but one soul loyalty, and that is loyalty to the American people.”
What really disgusts me is that this very quote has been spread throughout the Internet in various memes as justification for discriminating and denying our freedoms to those who want to come here by only including the second paragraph, while ignoring the primary message of his letter, which is in the first paragraph.
We cannot stand on the First Amendment and demand our rights to freedom of religion while denying others rights to theirs just because theirs are different from ours. Even more appalling is when people attempt to deny these rights to others by claiming to be protecting these same rights. The gay marriage issue is a perfect example. In no way does two people of the same sex getting married infringe on your rights at all. Yet to deny them the right to do absolutely infringes on their rights. I’ll admit that I am still uncomfortable when I see a same-sex couple holding hands or embracing. But that’s on me, not them.
The same goes for those athletes who have made news because they chose not to stand during the singing of the National Anthem. That disgusts me, but not as much as those who call for them to be arrested or persecuted because they have chosen to exercise their rights of expression. And think about this: Doesn’t it weaken the importance and meaning of the National Anthem to force those to stand for it? Doesn’t it mean much more when Americans stand for it out of respect and love for our country? Of course, we each have our right not to attend their games. And the team owners have the right to fire these players if they want.
This is why I am supporting Hillary Clinton and not Donald Trump. And if you share in our country’s core beliefs equal justice under the law, and are core rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, how could you vote any other way?
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