The upcoming election is not merely about the economy, but, more important, about protecting this nation from the most fundamental threat to the Constitution since the Civil War — socialism.

The United States was founded on two basic principles: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that all men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights ...”

Three times, a clear majority of Democratic National Convention delegates rejected language affirming that their natural rights come from the creator, not government, as socialists would have people accept. Government does not determine the rights and freedoms of the people.

President Barack Obama and his socialist supporters have had little respect for provisions of the Constitution that place limits on their ability to rule. Witness the growing number of executive orders and actions of the Obama administration to suppress dissent, to limit the importance and exercise of religious faiths and to use government resources to retaliate against those it finds objectionable. The most recent example is the Justice Department acting to investigate the Gallup organization over polling considered unfavorable to the Obama campaign.

Obamacare provisions would force religious-run institutions to violate the tenets of their faiths.

The Defense Department instituted a policy barring Bibles for patients in military hospitals. The list goes on.

It’s time to reject all those who would so endanger constitutional freedoms. We owe it to all those past and present who have so bravely sacrificed to protect us and this nation.

Peter Cipolloso, Oxford