President Trump and Vice-President Vance have recently made troubling statements that abandon basic premises of our country's founding, our freedom, and our society.                                       

 Examples of these statements are:

• President Trump, when asked by The New York Times if there are any checks on his global ambitions, said my own morality.  My own mind.  It’s the only thing that can stop me.
• He said the US will take Greenland the hard way if we can’t do it the easy way.  He disregarded Greenland as a NATO ally and any attack on one member country is an attack on all NATO countries.
• Vice President Vance said, before professional investigation, the death of a Minnesota woman, Renee Good, killed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was a tragedy of her own making.

Basic premises of our country’s founding are freedom and a caring society:

July 4, 2026 will mark 250 years since the Second Continental Congress unanimously signed the Declaration of Independence of the thirteen colonies that formed the United States of America. Noted in its second paragraph, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”  Constitution Amendment 19 ratified in 1920 corrected an injustice by granting women the right to vote.

Most religions of our society are anchored on the premise of love your God and love your neighbor as yourself. The Christian Bible, Luke Chapter 10, illustrates the meaning of neighbor by the parable of the Good Samaritan, an ethnic and religious rival despised by Jews. A Jewish man is robbed, beaten and left for dead. The Samaritan cared for the wounded Jew after two Jewish men pass on the other side of the road. The neighbor was the one who had mercy on the wounded man and cared for him.

I was born in 1938 and have lived most of my life in Warren County.  Growing up, I observed and became accustomed  to racial prejudice. I still have prejudice especially when surprised.  Now, Christian nationalism promotes a government dominated by white heterosexual males.  And Project 2025 published in April 2023 by the Heritage Foundation opposes the basic premises of love your God and your neighbor.  Let’s go back to basics.