COLUMN – Discrediting our founding documents and remaking history

Published 6:00 am Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

The fact that National Archives has just issued warnings that our founding documents are racist as well as a lot of other acronyms that have been recently invented, that make even less sense, deserves some comment.

Our Declaration of Independence is where it all started. Why would anyone want to discredit a document that put into motion a move to make all men — and women — free to exercise their God given right to seek opportunity in a land they inhabit?

As for our U.S. Constitution, simply put, this is the strongest document that has ever been written to help govern the people. Its strength comes from the fact it includes the capability of allowing those it protects from government overreach, to destroy it with a simple vote. Why would anyone protected by such a document want to discredit it, and thereby reduce or eliminate it?

Email newsletter signup

Last, consider our Bill of Rights. Where else can anyone in any government find a document that dictates the limitations of a government to control the people it helps to govern? The answer is pretty simple — nowhere!

As for attacking our history, it should be said that all history is sorted. Some violent, some partial and bigoted, and ours, along with all other civilizations and nations, has a long line of flaws. The difference that makes America great is our will and ability to correct those flaws. Some of those corrections come slowly and some are still required. But our willingness and ability to make changes in our laws and governing principles is our strength. Those who would transform the truth, change and re-invent our history, all for the sake of putting in place policies that fit their particular agenda, are undermining the value of historical truths. Changing what is written about history does not change history. It simply hides what has happened from unsuspecting younger generations. The result is that these folks become doomed to relive events others of us have been fortunate enough to skirt knowing the damage those situations have caused in the past.

PETER KAPUSCINSKI lives in Buckingham County. His email address is petekapus@ hotmail.com.