Sovereignty, liberty tied together

I need to read the Declaration of Independence more often. With all of the unAmerican idiots cluttering our streets and neighborhoods, it's important to be able to teach other generations what principles the U.S. is built upon. Those that don't respect the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be treated with derision and disdain. People that haven't figured out that the U.S. is the greatest nation on Earth shouldn't be discarded but they should be viewed as people of questionable character.

I write this in reply to David Strom's article about the capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro. In his article, Strom wrote "Maduro was, by any measure, an enemy of the United States and of his own people. There are 8 million Venezuelans who have been driven out of their country; nothing like that happens except in a failed state. The United States suffers a great deal of spillover from conditions in Venezuela, and there is no reason why we should tolerate the inflow of drugs, the Tren de Aragua invasion, and having to take in refugees due to Maduro's destruction of his country."

To those illiterates who think we should accept our treatment from Maduro's illegitimate regime, I'd cite our right to defend ourself. Venezuela sent us Tren de Aragua, boatloads of lethal drugs and their other gangs. This didn't happen accidentally. These were the deliberate actions of a terrorist drug cartel.

David's question/argument:

Maduro is allied with our enemies, including Iran and Hezbollah. I fail to understand any argument that says that a declared enemy of the United States should be immune from retaliation.

The answer is contained in the Declaration of Independence:

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.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes.

First, we're endowed by our Creator with the inalienable rights of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Next, our Founding Fathers implemented a new government whose foundation is "most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness." Hubert Humphrey once gave an Independence Day speech in St. Cloud's Wilson Park. In that speech, he highlighted the fact that the U.S. is the only nation whose founding documents established Happiness as a national goal. That's why he was one of this nation's happy warriors, the other being President Reagan.

By comparison, Venezuela's rulers hated themselves and their people. They didn't think twice about torturing their people or their neighboring nations. Mayor Mamdani weighed in:

I was briefed this morning on the U.S. military capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, as well as their planned imprisonment in federal custody here in New York City.

Unilaterally attacking a sovereign nation is an act of war and a violation of federal and…

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) January 3, 2026

What a lightweight. NYC is SO SCREWED! Finally, there's this:

We are the U.S. Why should we care what the world's biggest losers think?