On July 2, 2021, the Estes Park Trail Gazette published an editorial entitled “What it means to be truly free in America”, linked below. I posted the following comment to this article, which was promptly moderated and deleted. I have asked the Publisher to explain the reason for doing so – with no response.
https://www.eptrail.com/2021/07/02/editorial-what-it-means-to-be-truly-free-in-america/
Posted and deleted on Saturday July 3, 2021
Well said.
To be fair, our self-reflection must recognize ‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’ – for this is the underlying context of Integrity, as described more fully at nereus.com.
Our examination must include not only the value created by American’s experiment with Democracy, but also the costs of that achievement, for there is little integrity in being present to one without the other. Where people have unfairly born the cost of those achievements, it is time to make reparations, moving toward a time when the blessings of liberty are equally visited upon all. How many millions of young Americans are today being denied those blessings, because their inheritance stems from generations of poverty, both economic and of opportunity that is the result of generations of systemic racism? For how many of the rest of us does our comfort have the same source?
This examination forces us – if we are honest – to confront and accept difficult facts; the truth of the bigoted, racist choices that have shaped the lives of every American, for good or for ill. This means facing the serious lack of Integrity at the heart of the institutions of American Democracy. This means accepting the profound lack of true Christian heritage that defines the dark side of America today.
It is inevitable that human integrity fails at times. What there is to do is to recognize it and take actions to repair the damage this failing has created.
We must remember that principles always trump rules. The powerful can, do, and are making rules. When those rules are self-serving, when they stem from a context that falls short of ‘the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, when they fail to move us toward a nation of ‘liberty and justice for all’, they must be replaced with rules that do.
Support efforts underway today to do just that – national voting rights legislation, support for America’s human infrastructure that is at the heart of national productivity, and efforts to reverse the systemic forces feeding the growing disparity of wealth, opportunity and well-being.
Individual efforts to make money are much more worthy of respect than those whose wealth reaps great profits with little effort. Let American institutions respect and reflect that.