LETTER: Mission statement shows the way but we aren’t going there

To Ozaukee Press:

When they are being founded, most organizations adopt a mission statement or other aspirational document to point the direction they wish to follow. The founders of this country gave us the Preamble to the Constitution as our mission statement.      The Preamble is short, only one sentence long, but it is powerful in its aspirations for all of us. It reads, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence (sic), promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Our founders expected Congress to pass laws in support of these aspirations; the judiciary was expected to use this as a compass to determine if these laws were in line with the Constitution’s precepts; and the executive branch was expected to faithfully follow the decisions of the legislative and judicial branches.

The Constitution and its Preamble are based on the Magna Carta, which in 1215 stated that no one was above the law, including kings. The Supreme Court has desecrated this sacred document by giving our president unlimited power. Its abuse is on display daily, but most dramatically in masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents indiscriminately detaining and imprisoning American citizens and legally authorized temporary foreign visitors along with undocumented immigrants in the deportation purge ordered by an unchecked, kinglike president.

Our mission statement showed us the way to the blessings of liberty, but we seem to have lost way.

            John S. Strauss

Campton Hills, Ill.