Let’s restore American values

By Bob Freedland

It’s time to restore American values to this nation. Franklin Roosevelt was right. We need leaders who lead out of inspiration and vision, and not fear.

We must elect leaders who are responsible with the “purse,” leaders who balance the national checkbook each year, taxing us to meet the expenditures. It’s hateful to our descendants to cut taxes in the face of growing expenditures; they will be paying those debts for many years to come.
Let’s elect leaders who never start wars against nations that don’t represent threats to us, instead using diplomacy first and war only as a last resort. And when we conduct war, let us elect leaders that will abide by the Geneva Conventions instead of utilizing torture and extraordinary rendition.

Let’s always think first about the children of this nation — children who suffer when we allow ourselves to be manipulated into actions that hurt families in nontraditional homes — denying them insurance, child support and child custody that other children receive.

Children suffer when we, as a nation, fail to set priorities for health care for everyone — expending our nation’s wealth on bombs and mine-resistance vehicles when we need to be spending money to make sure every ill person has access to health care in America.

Our children’s public education is hurt by “No Child Left Behind,” which creates ever-higher standards on testing until those schools that most need assistance will see their funding cut and money funneled away toward nontested charter schools. Education requires us to teach our children about evolution; creation science belongs in Sunday school.

Our leaders pander to corporate interests more concerned with next quarter’s financial results than the integrity of the Greenland ice cap or the rising sea level, by denying global warming. This administration censors scientists who wish to talk about polar bears, allows industry lobbyists to rewrite climate change reports and denies California the right to reduce its carbon footprint.

Let’s elect leaders who believe in the rule of law and the importance of the Constitution as they exercise their governmental responsibilities. Signing statements that defy Congress, disappearance of White House e-mails, ignoring requirements for wiretapping, preventing congressional testimony and commuting the sentence of a White House staffer who broke the law is not acceptable behavior in America.

It’s more moral to allow parents to donate their unused frozen embryonic cells to science to advance research to cure disease than to throw them into the garbage. It is immoral to cut off support for clinics in Africa because they discuss abortion with impoverished women.

Let’s elect leaders who trust science, advance peace, believe in public education, protect the environment, follow the law and act as responsible stewards of our nation’s finances and natural resources. Our children are counting on us to vote with this in mind.

Bob Freedland, a physician, is one of 13 Tribune community columnists, whose writing appears on the Sunday Opinion pages.