Civil war echoes

Our country is living in the echoes of the Civil War. I do not write that lightly.

Thomas Jefferson brought the words of John Locke to the shores of this new world. Words that proclaimed the supremacy of humankind’s will to survive and our intelligence to know that through collaboration and the defense of the rights of others we protect our own civil rights.

Less than 70 years later, John C. Calhoun proclaimed that such a vision was a fallacy. Rather, he proclaimed, the few, the civilized and the successful had been ordained to rule over the many.

That debate has been expressed in so many ways of late. If this nation is to survive under the terms of our consent as expressed in the U.S. Constitution, it will only happen because of the will of good people representing all political, ethnic, religious and moral persuasions who recognize that the phrase “we, the People” cannot be used to coerce an agenda that deprives or marginalizes a few because they don’t fit our personal model of citizenship.

We are a civil government dedicated to the support and survival of all human beings who call our nation home.

Robert Ruder

Spokane