A time to stand up

I am running for Bernardsville Borough Council this year. I am a political newcomer, but I have a long career in business as well as a decade of experience in public sector finance and strategy. I am running to serve on the Borough Council, but I also want to be a voice for positive change in our community and in our country.

I felt compelled to write this letter after the heartbreaking events this weekend in Charlottesville, VA. Only five months ago my wife and I took our young son on a tour of colonial America including Williamsburg, Jamestown and Charlottesville, VA. We walked very close to the street where a US citizen drove a car into a crowd of people in an eerily similar attack to those of terrorists overseas.

But in the aftermath of these events, the murder of Heather Heyer, the tragic deaths of Lieutenant H. Jay Cullen and Trooper Berke M. M. Bates, we have experienced an additional self-inflicted wound. It is the argument of moral equivalence between the protesters and the counter-protesters. Violence must be condemned and the rights of free speech and peaceful protest must be respected. But the Declaration of Independence clearly states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

Clearly the KKK, neo-Nazis, and white supremacists are wrong. Their views are wrong. Their opinions are un-American and run counter to the best known line of the Declaration of Independence. While the government cannot make a law restricting their right to their own opinion, the President does not need to tacitly or implicitly provide any room or validation for their views.

It is time for all of us to stand up for the ideals of our country. I recall reading recently that America is not so much a ‘place’ as it is an ‘idea’. An idea that everyone has equal value, that opportunity belongs to each person and that no group is superior to other groups. We are all Americans.

There is no moral equivalence and there should be no gray area among our leaders and politicians. It is time for all of us to stand up for what is right.