Voting Angry in America

To the Editor:
How many of you are angry with the political process? Frustrated that your voice isn’t being heard? How many of you find it painful, if not embarrassing as Americans, to watch some of these political debates? How many believe our country is on the wrong track, that we are headed towards a cliff and that no matter how loud we shout in warning, no one seems to be listening? I’m with you.  2016 is not about politics as usual.  A lot more is at stake here. The American Idea is at risk.
So our anger is appropriate.  Any sane person would be angry. But let me ask you this.  When was the last time you made a smart decision, when you were really angry? The two rarely go hand in hand. The votes we cast in this election should not be driven by anger and frustration.  We must not allow fear and divisiveness to overwhelm us. 
The solution is right in front of us and always has been. Even in the most dangerous and tumultuous times in our nation’s history, there has always been a place of safety and refuge for us to gather. This place is the bulwark that defends our freedoms and defines our rights.  Our safest harbor in turbulent times has always been and must remain the U.S. Constitution. 
For close to eight years now, we have seen the Progressive leadership of the Democrat Party shred our Constitution as an annoying nuisance. They see our founding principles and documents as an obstacle to the “total transformation” of America. Barack Obama has assumed the role of a quasi-king. Our freedoms are diminished on every front, through the ever-expanding use of executive orders, the overreach of federal bureaucrats, the politicization of the IRS, the EPA, the Department of Education and even our military.  This president has thumbed his nose at both Congress and the courts, denying them their lawful roles as equal partners in the three separate branches of government.
Our Constitution was designed to limit the size, power and scope of the ruling class.  The goal was to form a government just powerful enough to protect individual rights, without impinging on personal freedom and self-determination. Under the current administration, we have strayed far from this path. The election of Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton would only add more fuel to the fire that threatens to burn away our civil liberties and leave us shackled to the twin pillars of socialism’s shared misery and the suicidal tendencies of political correctness.
We are not a nation of victims, doomed to failure without the suffocating care of the Federal Government from cradle to grave. We are Americans and our exceptionalism, the very essence of our greatness as a nation, is rooted in the most powerful force ever known to man, the freedom of the individual to dream and to follow that dream. 
If our country is to be saved, our liberties well-defended and our self-determination preserved, we must turn away from Washington and an ever more powerful and intrusive government.  We must resist the temptation to replace one power-hungry strongman with another.  Instead we should look to ourselves, we the people. We must embrace personal responsibility, free will and the rights of every man and woman to shape their own destiny. These are the virtues that our country was founded on. This is the path back from the edge to a restoration of the American Dream.  This is the reasoned argument that a serious candidate for president must bring to the American people; a message of hope, not anger.