Years ago, Edmund Burke warned, “the commonwealth itself would … be disconnected.”

Today we conclude and write in this column that there is a severe and total “disconnect” of leading elected officials in Washington, D.C., from the American citizens they are supposed to represent.

Let’s look at two of the all too many disconnects — two unconscionable disconnects.

The War on Terror and the evil that gave birth to it and continues to sustain it will go on for more years than many American citizens want to understand and accept, as the time-line reality necessary to defeat terrorists and the evil they do extends far into the future.

And the battle for Iraq and Afghanistan, in each instance, has lasted too long — read that to mean longer than necessary.

After 9/11, the Americans rightly understood “what needed to be done” and overwhelmingly were in support of “doing whatever needed to be done” to defeat our enemies.

Unconscionably, the brave men and women in our military and their families, who have sacrificed for our country — many giving their lives and limbs — have been done a severe and terrible disservice by each elected official who has not and will not develop, support and execute a policy and actions that will win the battles in Iraq, Afghanistan and wherever else the War on Terror may require.

Imagine for a moment, if today’s politicians were in place back in December 1941 following the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor?

Compare your flashback thoughts to the wisdom actually exhibited during World War II among our American military and political leaders. Those leaders “connected” with America’s citizens. They recognized the need to engage first the evil of Hitler’s Germany in Western Europe and then the treachery of Japan.

Back then, it was said that politics stopped at the water’s edge. That admirable attitude and behavior, I believe, was rooted in the minds and hearts of America’s elected officials as an understanding and commitment that they were: Americans first.

Next, consider the severe problem of “illegal entry” into the United States and the plans being pushed by so many of today’s elected officials who prefer to call their plans “immigration reform.”

Here are three facts about the reform plans cooked up by the “D.C. disconnected.” The legislation, U.S. Senate Bill S-1639, harms national security by “giving cover to terrorists,” harms citizen taxpayers by “giving illegal workers a pass on taxes,” and undermines the U.S. rule of law by “making illegal immigrants immune to immigration law.”

As I noted in a previous column, the comprehensive immigration reform being pushed in Washington is driven purely by politics. Politics birthed it; politics sustained its life; and it’s not yet dead. The deal-makers will be back with what will be called yet another ‘grand compromise’. And the compromise will serve only to compromise American rule of law, the real meaning of U.S. citizenship, our values, our culture, our freedoms and more.

How and why is this happening? Because of the “disconnects” — the “unconscionable disconnects.”

To paraphrase Edmund Burke, “this unprincipled facility of changing the state as often, and as much, and in as many ways, as there are floating fancies and fashions, the whole chain and continuity (of the country) will be broken.” Is that the objective? Is that their agenda?

America’s citizens overwhelmingly want the United States to commit to win every battle in the War on Terror.

America’s citizens overwhelmingly want the political cabal now under way under the guise of “immigration reform” to stop immediately.

America’s citizens understand what Edmund Burke meant when he wrote, “Society is indeed a contract. It is to be looked on with reverence.”

They understand, too, that the “unconscionable disconnects” noted above are affronts to order, civil society and the ongoing sovereignty of our country.

America’s citizens overwhelmingly want to see reverence to the social contract of our Constitution and our founding principles.