It is appropriate for me to take this opportunity to remind all our constituents to exercise their most precious right….the right to vote for the leader of the free world.  When you consider the impact of  a few minutes spent in a voting booth, you will make the necessary adjustments in your day to accommodate such a privilege.  Recent political dialogue and world reaction to our upcoming election affirms that  we are the strongest and most influential nation in the world and that our actions have direct consequences on all other nations.  

Perhaps it is a good time for us to look back over our history at how hard people have fought for the franchise.  A bit of history:

• In the US, at the time of the Constitution, it is estimated that only 6% of the adult male population were entitled to vote.
• Subsequent democratic changes eliminated religious and property qualifications.
• Racial barriers to voting existed legally until the Fifteenth Amendment was ratified after the Civil War.
• After that….blacks were excluded from voting in some states through such devices as the white primary, the poll tax, literacy tests, and grandfather clauses.
• Women were given the franchise in 1920.
• The right to vote was extended to 18 year olds in 1971.
• Excluded are the mentally ill and convicted felons.

We have proclaimed the value of our freedoms across the globe and through many small and global conflicts.  The Revolutionary War was fought to maintain our right to be heard, be represented, and to exercise religious freedom.  The Civil War was fought to ensure that all had the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness regardless of color.  World War I was fought to protect individual’s country’s rights to have sovereign boundaries and following this war, nations believed we would end global conflict...they established an international peace keeping entity, The League of Nations.  World War II was fought to, again, stop one country from invading and conquering the world and targeting certain ethnicities for racial cleansing.  Again, the world attempted to develop an international peace keeping entity that would avoid global conflict, the United Nations. 

The United States became involved in the Korean and the Vietnam Conflicts as we proclaimed a need to protect countries sovereign boundaries and rights to govern themselves.  We are currently in Iraq,  proclaiming that all the citizens of Iraq have the right to determine self-rule. We are living in a different time, an era when all citizens of the planet are increasingly more aware of all other citizens.  Those who have not are more aware of those who have and of how they live and spend what they have. 

There has always been political unrest in countries.  There will always be inequity and injustice in the world.  How will the world respond to “bullies” (terrorists) who blackmail the civilized world through non civilized means?  This is not the time to capitulate to the demands of terror by yielding our freedoms and  our rights.  The world faced what was then perceived as a global threat in Adolf Hitler.  Those who experienced the horrors of the concentration camps, watched the trains roll by taking men, women and children packed like cattle to be exterminated and smelled the death camps, knew terror.   The world was thrust into chaos for a number of years, as we sent our young men and women to fight for morality and freedom. Those who lived in Europe where the bombings were daily, knew terror.  Winston Churchill spoke to such a nation, at such a time and motivated a nation to rise to greater heights and remain united in their efforts.  He said quite passionately that “we have nothing to fear, but fear itself”.  I fear that we are once again in such a time….a time when our nation needs to reach around one another and lift our vision higher.  We need to remember where we have been, how far we have come, and where we need to go. 

Righteousness will prevail, justice is inevitable for all men and women;  above all else we are a civilized and moral nation and we must believe and proceed with the dignity that is America. 

We must not yield the essence of who we are in order to fight that which seeks to destroy the very fabric of our nation. Honor our country by honoring the most treasured right we have…..VOTE!!