As we’ve watched, read, and listened to the verbal bombasts after a couple of recent U. S. Supreme Court decisions and hearing some inflammatory rhetoric from a fairly-recent presidential candidate, we are left with some unfortunate questions.

Does a great nation always have to have some citizens it can consider inferior, someone less qualified to seek the same life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness that most of us feel we automatically inherit as American citizens?

Does a great nation always have to have some citizens to disparage because they are different—in color, in gender attitude, in origin, in occupation, in intellectual or physical ability?

Does a great nation need to have so many people assuming God’s authority to decide which of us will be saved and which of us will be damned?

Does a great nation have to have some people profiting by peddling fear?

Does a great nation always have to be looking out the corners of its eyes at others, asking if they can be trusted?

Does a great nation need to curry a climate of suspicion within its populace?

Does a great nation need to portray entire segments of its population as unworthy because of the actions of a few?

Be careful how you answer these questions. Each of us is one of or descended from one of or knows one of those we asked about. And sometimes that makes it harder to proclaim greatness.