We have removed from our public school systems a class that would educate our young in their rights and duties as citizens. Part of that education involves the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. I wish I had the time to research this removal and find out who exactly spearheaded something that provided the foundation for making good citizens out of the future electorate. The next question is, “Did anyone ever require that you actually read the two above documents?” No! Well, that is a problem. As we forge ahead for the next almost 14 months in our downward slide to another presidential election, perhaps one of the things we should require of every citizen above the age of reason is the reading of the two above documents.

I realize, every year in East Lansing, we select a book that every Tom, Dick and Harriet is badgered into reading. Perhaps we should amend this year’s selection with an additional read and pick up both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. I understand that some individuals in power would be averse to two documents written by a bunch of fairly old white men who wielded power over a lot of people, but these two documents are the basis of everything we stand for. They are the foundation of what the U.S. is and where it is probably going to go for centuries to come. Knowing full well that many of the individuals going to the voting booths across the country have never even touched those documents, let alone read them, is incomprehensible and actually horrifying.

Now you are starting to think that I am becoming a fear monger and slightly or more so off base. Well, let’s look at the political scene and its many talking heads across the country along with a few simple words from the Declaration of Independence, “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.”

I guess when I read this I do not see a Methodist God, or a Catholic God, or a Baptist God, or a Mormon God or any such specific god who dictates to the citizenry the beliefs of His particular flock, and I surely do not see the more prejudicial beliefs of some of the more radical of certain “god” followers. I find that when candidates begin their diatribes against atheists, homosexuals, free thinkers, women’s rights advocates, other religious groups (you name it, they can be against it), there exists a disconnect with the foundations of our country.

Politicians love to spout rhetoric that covers the spectrum of fairly biased beliefs from same sex marriage to abortion; but do the beliefs they want to force on you follow the foundations of our country? Keep in mind, if you have never read the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution of the United States, it is pretty hard to have anything to say to agree or disagree with my opinion. I would hope that anyone who is eligible to vote in 2012 will, long before that plunge into the voting booth, take the time to see if what their candidates are saying actually lines up with the documents that form the foundation of our country.

If Barak Obama, or Rick Perry, or Sarah Palin, or Michele Bachman or any of the other characters trying to get your vote violate the tenets of our society, then discard them from any consideration. On the other hand, if our voting public is too lazy, and I would say stupid, to not even read the text that exists as the basis of the U.S., then there should be absolutely no complaint about what creatures we allow to govern us.

Craig Gunn is a State News guest columnist. Reach him at gunn@egr.msu.edu.