And...with the principles always of "Truth and Justice."
We were proud to be Americans because we were a free democracy and we fought for freedom and human rights everywhere.
Truth and justice in the world meant something; it meant everything to us.
It was part of our Judeo-Christian faith and who were were as people and as a nation.
We defeated colonial rule, slavery, Hitler, Communism, and even put a man on the moon while heralding in suffrage and equal rights irrespective of color, race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and more.
The truth was sought out no matter where it was to be found, and justice needed be done to satisfy the courts below and the Heaven above.
But it seems that a lot has changed, hasn't it?
Right is no longer right, but rather politics makes right.
From smear campaigns, secret dossiers, exaggerations and fairy tales to name-calling, hate speech, cyber attacks, and marketing and branding to undo the opposition.
From secret email servers, foundation pay-to-play, and pizzagate to claims of Russian campaign ties.
From a Snowden surveillance state to stolen questions from election debates.
From abstention at hateful, bigoted UN resolutions to deals with terrorist Iranian mullahs.
From honors at the White House for Army deserter Bergdahl to injustices meted out against the opposition party by unscrupulous political appointees.
From fake news to the abandonment of investigative journalism with now one-sided bias and trash talking journalists and even SNL "comedians."
From the reversal of dry-foot wet-foot immigration for Cubans (what ever happened to helping refugees in need and danger?) to watching 500,000 dead in Syria from the sidelines of violated red lines.
From a purge of 36,000 after a Turkey coup to the rise of competing ISIS and Iranian terror caliphates across Asia and the Middle East.
From nukes on NATO's borders to Russia's annexation of Crimea and invasion of Georgia and from China's buildout in the South China Sea and threatening of its neighbors and freedom of navigation of the seas to North Korea developing and tests ballistic missiles and nukes.
From shootings of African Americans to "revenge killings" against police officers and the demise of inner-city America with skyrocketing crime and the long misery of poverty and homelessness.
From decrepit U.S. infrastructure, jobs going overseas, a widening trade deficit, and an overwhelming national debt.
From rose-colored glasses, half-baked statistics, and selling bogus ideas to the "media echo chamber."
From abandonment of allies and friends to embracing terrorist murders and the inability to say "radical Islamist."
From campaigning from within the White House on the taxpayer dime to attacking Bernie Sanders for his faith to steer the primary to Hillary.
From secret meetings on airplanes with the Attorney General while in the middle of an investigation to lies about videos being the cause of an attack on our Benghazi mission and the murder of an American Ambassador.
From prosecuting some for mishandling government classified information to letting others go who were "grossly negligent" endangering national security.
From divisiveness and "resistance" to creating an inability to get anything done.
From sit-ins and walk-outs and from disrespectful "peaceful" demonstrations to violent protests, and from loose-mouths to paid operatives to disrupt lawful campaign rallies.
From "Not my president" to how dare anyone question the legitimacy of our elections.
From breaking glass ceilings to creating new barriers between peoples and races across the spectrum.
From broken healthcare to bankrupt social security, and from failing education to trailing life expectancy.
From a decrepit nuclear triad "deterrent" to a weakening of the global order, including Brexit.
From terrorism and war to genocide, refugees, and human rights violations.
So as lies and corruption run rampant and we are aghast with mouths open wide at how far things can fall...we recognize when power itself becomes the end rather than the means, and wielding it becomes more important than any truth and any justice, and that is fundamentally how totally unAmerican things have become, indeed.
(Source Photo: Andy Blumenthal)
