Four score and seven years ago our fathers watched from this continent, secure in this nation’s liberty, as a narcissistic dictator crossed his neighbor’s border to make his country great again.
Now we are again engaged in great civil discord, debating whether this nation, or any nation, is strengthened or weakened by promoting the rule of law and the liberty of all, in other nations, as well as in our own. Our fathers discussed and debated for two years before external forces made their decision, and they suffered four years of the full horrors of war.
The brave men, living and dead, who struggled then, preserved this nation and spread the concept that a nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal can be a force for good in the world. It is for us to be dedicated to the unfinished work which those who fought so nobly advanced. It is for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from those honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
As we approach the Nov. 3 election, vote! Pressure legislators! We must stop our own narcissistic dictator from digging us deeper into a pit of isolation and defenseless friendlessness.
Steve Howe
Florence