Familiarize yourself with the chains of bondage and prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises.”
–Abraham Lincoln response to 1857 US Supreme Court’s Dred Scott Decision
Politicians who steal our freedom try to do it softly. They cushion their cruelty with imprecise language about “the process” and “the will of the Legislature.”
“I am pro-life,” my opponent assures us.
Yet, he fights for laws that kill our mothers, our sisters, our daughters.
Is this inflammatory rhetoric? I should hope so.
What freedom-loving person isn’t fuming when Idaho politicians, urged on by House Speaker Scott Bedke, fight to immediately institute a law that threatens doctors and endangers women? There’s no gray area here. The law is clear. Idaho forbids doctors from performing emergency abortions that save the lives of women.
Mr. Bedke and his powerful accomplices camouflage wanton cruelty with genteel bewilderment, phony empathy, mock outrage.
Now is the time to be inflamed. The independence that flickers in our hearts must become a bonfire for us to prevail. In a democracy, that means voting. Our votes can burn down even the most stubborn injustices.
For those who misunderstand the metaphor, this is a call to defeat the violence of oppression with the far greater power of peaceful, purposeful voting.
Our votes are stronger than any mob that would trample our sacred public spaces. Our votes create a virtuous circle where freedom and democracy grow stronger together.
To paraphrase the Great Emancipator: when we let freedom be taken from others, we forfeit our own.
Light your flame! Vote, Nov. 8.