Letters to the Editor: Our flawed founders left us a Constitution that was much better than them

To the editor: Racist as the founders of this country were, the fact remains that they provided us with a framework to overcome all that deleteriously impacts us — the United States Constitution. (“Happy birthday to a fragile, divided America,” editorial, July 4)

With this underpinning, we as a people must pull together, when necessary, to overcome all that gets in our way of the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. That is what is great about America and all Americans, regardless of color.

When the downtrodden want to rise up to overcome societal imbalance, the Constitution allows us to do so. That is why we have survived as a nation, and why we will continue to survive as a nation and as a people. There is hope.

As we move forward, we will continue to learn how to do so together, we will overcome that which impedes our progress, and we will achieve our personal definitions of life, liberty, happiness and peace.

Greg Sirbu, Redondo Beach

..

To the editor: Your yearning for “an America of robust health and shared prosperity, an America open to immigration and innovation, an America with social mobility and a strong middle class, an America that is confident enough to acknowledge and reckon with the tragedies of its past, an America with a shared civic vocabulary and an openness to good-faith debate” sounds like an unrealistic pipe dream when all our institutional and capitalist forces are arrayed against it.

Republicans are successfully clawing away voting rights from citizens who tend to vote Democratic, and they even have the Supreme Court firmly in their hands. Congress has demonstrated that it is powerless to act.

The only hope seems to be the 2022 midterm election. Yet even there, Democratic victories will almost certainly be endlessly challenged by Republican state governments and in the courts, and possibly even be overturned by GOP-controlled legislatures.

Though the odds are against us, we must find new and smarter ways to fight back.

Kenneth Canatsey, Agoura Hills

..

To the editor: This year’s Independence Day coverage in The Times was darker than a year ago, when Donald Trump was president and the pandemic was raging. Yet, today we are facing our failings squarely with the intent to do something about them.

Despair and shaming get us nowhere. What is needed is radical love — the conviction that we’re all in this together — combined with programs of practical help that will make people’s lives better.

Today we have president who is committed to both, yet The Times offers scant hope for reform and wallows in the kind of guilt that benefits no one.

Glenn Pascall, Dana Point