While presidential candidate Donald Trump suggests his call to ban all Muslims from entering the United States is politically incorrect but courageous, it actually makes America look bigoted and fearful, and we should all reject that notion.

It makes us look fearful that we can’t make our people safe without resorting to bigotry and religious persecution. That’s not strength. That’s weakness. It’s also tyranny, the same tyranny the participants in the original Boston Tea Party were rebelling against. And now, some of us think it’s all right.

You don’t have to go far to find people of Trump’s own party denouncing his proposal. From former Vice President Dick Cheney: “I think this whole notion that somehow we can just say no more Muslims, just ban a whole religion, goes against everything we stand for and believe in.”

“I mean, religious freedom has been a very important part of our history and where we came from. A lot of people, my ancestors got here, because they were Puritans.”

Presidential challenger Jeb Bush called Trump “unhinged.” Sen. Ted Cruz was more diplomatic, saying banning Muslims wasn’t his policy.

Trump’s latest ridiculous policy may likely hurt the Republican Party as a whole, a prospect leaders should consider in their justifiable rejection of Trump’s hate-laced message.

Billionaire GOP backer Mike Fernandez has taken out full page ads in newspapers around the country denouncing Trump. If Trump wins the GOP nomination, Fernandez vows to support Hillary Clinton.

Fernandez’s ads compared Trump to history’s dictators: “Look at Hitler in Germany, Mussolini in Italy and Peron in Argentina,” it says. “When people lose hope, they are susceptible to those who offer to think for them.”

The renunciation of Trump’s threats was not limited by geographic boundaries or class. World leaders in Europe and refugees in Syria described Trump’s policy statement as “Islamaphobia” and “hate rhetoric.”

But we don’t need world leaders to tell us when an arrogant politician has gone wrong.

We only need to look inward. We founded our country on a principle that can be found in the second line of the Declaration of Independence, which was a declaration for religious freedom.

“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal.”

 

— Mankato Free Press, Dec. 8