We are living in the wake of the corruption of otherwise great people, in particular George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Madison, as well as their peers. They risked their lives to promote liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security. They claimed those values were universal but defended them for themselves and their peers only. Their corruption was not to extend them to their slaves.

The legacy of their corruption follows a direct line to John C. Calhoun and Jefferson Davis, then to Margaret Sanger, Henry Ford, and Ford’s dear friend Adolph Hitler, through to today’s persistent, enduring racism and greatest risks to national and global security.

Still, I don’t blame them. They didn’t ask to be born into a slave culture. They couldn’t help it. Abundant research shows that no matter what you think of yourself and whatever your identity, had you been born into a culture like theirs where people of your identity enslaved others, you would have overwhelmingly likely become like them.

If you think their statues should be taken down but you violate the values they do, which if you’re American you do, as we’ll see below, what moral place do you stand on? Or, more to the point, why don’t you stop violating those values? When?

There is a saving grace. Their corruption may have led to behavior that violated their values, but they got the words of the Constitution right. My liberal, progressive upbringing taught me to see the US as a decent enough place but highly flawed, in particular related to practicing slavery, displacing Native Americans, and depriving adults of the vote. The more I understand the Constitution and Declaration, the more I see the documents contained the wording to prevent those travesties. Those words just weren’t enforced.

This part of their legacy follows a direct line to Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, and people today fighting for liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security, including me.

Pollution and depletion deprive people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. They violate the consent of the governed. The fifth amendment before the Civil War should have sufficed to end slavery and Indian removal. The requirement of the consent of the governed should have meant full voting rights for adults.

I don’t believe the Constitution contains extraneous rights or requirements. Enforcing them all protects us from tyranny and civil war, and enables liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security. Not enforcing any means tyranny, civil war, loss of national security, or more.

Today enforcing the Constitution and Declaration means stopping pollution and depletion—technically what I call in my upcoming book Type 2 pollution and depletion, none of which is necessary to live or thrive. If we don’t enforce it, we can expect tyranny, civil war, loss of national security, and more. We’re seeing many predictable results in our nation’s and world’s racism, insecurity, polarization, addiction, lacking time for family, struggle to afford rent and food, despair, and more.

When we do things that pollute and deplete, by violating the Constitution and Declaration, we are acting as corrupted as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison. When we make excuses that we can’t help it, that it’s too hard, etc, we are following John C. Calhoun’s legacy and extending it. If we suggest taking down their statues while violating the parts of the Constitution and Declaration they did, I propose that we first stop violating these documents ourselves by stopping all pollution and depletion.

The Founders claimed they couldn’t stop their violations. Every excuse I’ve heard to avoid stopping pollution and depletion today, Jefferson said better. We know had he stopped violating the Constitution and Declaration he wrote most of, his fears would not have been realized. He would only have wished he had acted sooner. He would have looked back in horror at his corruption, not acting to stop himself when he knew he was violating his values.

When we stop violating the Constitution and Declaration, our fears will not be realized. We will only wish we acted sooner. We will look back in horror at our corruption, not acting to stop ourselves when we know we are violating our values.

• ← This week’s selected media, March 8, 2026: Gulag documentaries