I wonder if anyone else on Vashon was as disappointed as I was to receive this year’s voter pamphlet which described the various good-intentioned candidates and their messages to voters of why they are running and what goals they might be interested in pursuing, if elected.
Here’s what I find very sad: Not that anyone said anything that wasn’t good and proper, and I may be mistaken, but I believe every successful candidate who gets elected will be required to take an oath of office, promising on their word of honor that they will, to the best of their ability, preserve, protect, and defend the United States Constitution against anyone who was, purposely or otherwise, actively not doing that.
I don’t remember very many candidates who even concerned themselves with the fact that we already do have elected officials who, in my opinion, are clearly not honoring their oath of office. Maybe more citizens and elected government officials really ought to care about that and begin to honor their own pledge of allegiance or oath of office to the best of their ability.
In my opinion, we are a country in decline and headed for collapse precisely because so many of our elected or appointed officials don’t seem to know or care what the Constitution says or what they intend to do about it; that concerns me. We have people who have been elected or appointed to the highest offices of the land who are actively making decisions that will surely not preserve, protect, or defend what our founding fathers had in mind when they agreed to risk their lives and everything they had worked and hoped for to give to their loved ones and future progeny: a chance for a better way of life than any nation then or now existing. Read the Bill of Rights.
I believe our Founding Fathers gave us a chance and a strategy for pursuing that dream. I once believed that a great majority of us might continue to keep that dream alive. Now I have my doubts. I share my thoughts with you feeling a great sense of sadness in my heart and soul of where things are now. We seem to not have collectively taught our progeny what that dream was and how that dream might be preserved, protected, and defended. Too many of those now in office or getting a corporate or government paycheck don’t seem to have learned the lessons our forefathers hoped we might learn, even though so many citizens have already courageously fought and died hoping to help keep that dream alive.
I hope maybe there are still citizens, teachers, and parents on Vashon and in other places around the country who will at least try a little harder to understand and teach what the U.S. Constitution says, what our founders meant, and what each of us might do to keep their dream alive.
I am not offering these comments as a letter to the editor. I’ve heard too many times … “… far too many words.” But rather, I’m just left with a fading hope, that my words of concern might somehow make a difference to some editor, some citizen, somewhere, who thinks they are worth sharing and/or doing something about.
With love,
Mark A. Goldman
