By Joseph L. Bass

During the recent campaign, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Ginsburg said she would move to New Zealand if Trump won. I sent her a Neverland Airline Inc. ticket for travel to that faraway place. Her traveling companion is listed as Peter Pan, with Tinker Bell as flight attendance. The letter below was included.

Enclosed please find a ticket for your flight to New Zealand. I send it as a birthday present from the American people. I hope you enjoy your life there.

Many people from other nations try to move here. Some will wonder why you choose to live elsewhere. I provide below a few talking points.

“In answering questions about why I have chosen to leave the United States I provide the following:

“America was founded on a set of principles I cannot live with. I had hoped to change the nation to different principles, much like those the American people revolted against in 1776. I sought to make these changes through judicial decisions from my position as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Obviously my effort, supported by other liberals, is not working and is not likely to succeed anytime soon.

“American founding documents established a new type of nation. If taken literally, they put power in the hands of the people, making all first-class citizens. Worst of all, the Second Amendment of the Bill of Rights empowered the people to keep and bear arms sufficient to have the capability to overthrown an oppressive government.

“Nearly all other nations are based on Socrates’ ideal state that he called a ‘republic.’ His republic envisioned three classes of people: educated, powerful, wealthy rulers; armed military and police; and uneducated, unarmed producers This, of course, is a class-based society like the American South during slavery and Jim Crow.

“My problem with America today is that government is moving closer and closer to the type of government originally stated. Thomas Jefferson’s words in the Declaration of Independence were only 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. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.’

“In 1776, America was a class-based society. Slavery was legal, and many founding fathers owned slaves. But revolutionaries have made progress toward making Jefferson’s words reality. America experienced an abolitionist movement, a Civil War and a Reconstruction era. Jim Crow activism briefly turned back the tide, but progressively these objectionable ideas have been incorporated into law and practice.

“The most frightening incorporation is that today all law-abiding citizens are allowed to exercise Second Amendment rights. As can be seen in the 1857 Supreme Court decision, white Americans have always had guns and could carry them from state to state without molestation wherever they went. But progressively the racial limitation has been eliminated, and soon all law-abiding citizens will be able to do what only white people could do before the Civil War.

“These are some of my reasons for leaving America and moving to a nation structured more like Socrates’ ideal state. I expect to feel more comfortable living in such a nation.”

Joseph L. Bass is the executive director of ABetterSociety.Info Inc., a nonprofit organization in Hobson. Email him at ABetterSociety1@aol.com.