The Cost Of Illiteracy

God knows, the United States has failed many times to live up to its ideals. But its great leaders understood those ideals and put them into words. Unfortunately, Donald Trump doesn't read. That inconvenient truth is evident every time he steps in front of a teleprompter. Jennifer Rubin writes that, if Trump did read, he would have encountered several worthy sentiments:

Thomas Jefferson’s words — “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” — transcend the flawed author and the epoch in which they were written. They define the country not as an “us” vs. “them” fight to the death; they make clear this is an experiment in self-government that each generation must perfect.

Or, if he read, Trump might have encountered the real Abraham Lincoln -- who he likes to compare himself to:

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

And, instead of shouting "law and order," he might say something different, having read these words from Martin Luther King:

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial ‘outside agitator’ idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.”

Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest. …

I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law.

Trump stands as the ugliest example of the cost of illiteracy.

Image: Macleans