OPINION:
Retired Lt. Gen. Kellogg makes some good points in “Jan. 6, 2021: My view from the White House” (Web, Jan. 6). But he also makes some glaring errors. The least (likely a typo) was his assertion that “what happened that day was not the only instance of violence in 2020 … ” But his claim that he “learned from years in the military” is laughable.
Military leaders did not learn from the Vietnam War. And the cost in blood and treasure from the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq have stained every political party, administration and military command since then.
Worse, however, is Kellogg’s assertion that “divisiveness today is driven by a polarized press.” That’s a patently false and partisan perspective. The press is supposed to report the truth when policymakers lie. Donald Trump told more lies than all other presidents combined. His disconnect from reality sourced most polarization. The media makes mistakes, but its mistakes don’t kill hundreds of thousands of Americans with lies about the seriousness of COVID-19.
The wisest thing Kellogg writes is that we should ask ourselves, “What do we want this nation to look like?” True patriots want our nation to look like the ideals in our nation’s founding document, the Declaration of Independence. We want the “truths” that we “hold … to be self-evident” enforced in laws.
Americans’ mistrust in government today is entirely understandable. Not a single intended result listed in our Constitution’s preamble has been met after 230 years of law making. Abraham Lincoln once wrote that our Declaration of Independence is our “Apple of Gold” and the Constitution its “frame of silver.” But until our constitutional laws mirror “the Laws of Nature and Nature’s God,” things are going to get worse, perhaps catastrophic — unless we fail to amend it to match the big idea America stands for, instead of Trump’s big lie.
CHUCK WOOLERY
Rockville, Md.
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