Editor, Gazette-Journal:

I would like to ask the American people to put aside our political identities and consider questions of right and wrong.

For example, is it right or wrong to let food rot in ports? To cut medical coverage to people of limited means? To break legal contracts? To replace without cause a qualified official with an unqualified individual? To fire at short notice people who are doing the jobs they were hired to do?

Let’s go deeper: What if letting food rot or cutting medical coverage means people die? What if breaking legal contracts means farmers lose their farms? What does it say when a qualified black official is replaced by an unqualified white official? Wouldn’t firing thousands of people at the same time cause mass unemployment?

These are moral questions, not political ones.

What about truth? Was it right to say water dumped unnecessarily was going to Los Angeles when there was no way it could get there? To say Ukraine started a war that Russia started? Is right to call a purge an audit?

Here is an ethical question: In a constitutional government, shouldn’t elected leaders follow the constitution? For example, if the U.S. Constitution says Congress holds the purse strings, should the President freeze federal spending? Should a U.S. president to rescind birthright citizenship granted by the U.S. Constitution?

The U.S. has voted against our former allies, established European democracies, on a U.N. resolution demanding that Russia withdraw from Ukraine and saying Russia’s aggression violated the U.N. charter. We voted with autocratic Russia. Are we becoming an autocracy?

Our responsibility as citizens does not end on Election Day. Where we see wrong, we need to change it. We can make phone calls, write letters, and hold peaceful assemblies. Regardless of political affiliation, we should be doing everything legally possible to regain the moral high side.

Molly Hoffman
Gwynn, Va.