Set politics aside. In regard to the Ukraine conflict, the Reform Party looks to our own core national values for guidance.
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…
This text is from the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence, but we didn’t put it in quotes, for a reason. For the Reform Party, those words aren’t just part of a founding document, or a historical record, they are a creed that we follow in our internal affairs, and in crafting our political stances.
We truly believe that these words, this creed, is a universal truth, and we apply it not only to our fellow citizens, but to our neighbors around the world. All have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. All have the right to be governed only with their collective consent.
What we are seeing in Ukraine is a Democratic Republic, ruling by the consent of the governed, being attacked and destroyed by another neighboring state that does not respect life, does not uphold liberty, and cares not for the happiness of its own citizens, much less those of other nations. A state that has demonstrated, time and again, that it will use crushing force, media censorship, and violence to prevent even its own people having a voice in their lives.
Thousands of members of the Ukrainian defense forces and Russian military have already paid for this folly with their lives. Millions of dollars that could have been spent improving the lives of Russian and Ukrainian citizens have been squandered. And we are now poised on the edge of a civilian disaster, with tens of thousands of lives lost, refugees fleeing upheaval, and the destruction of a society due, to the unbridled arrogance of a ruling elite that can’t accept governance by the consent of the governed.
The Reform Party generally opposes foreign adventurism and unwanted intervention. This is not the case here. If the defense of a legitimate government and a free people against death and destruction is not justified here, then when is it justified? For our fellow Americans, are those words from the Declaration of Independence just words, to be uttered from our safe spaces, or are they a sacred call, that may require blood, sweat, toil, and tears?
