Let Freedom Ring

In the Tree House: Let Freedom Ring

By: Samantha S. Daviss

Well today is the day! I am writing to you on Election Day for all public offices running, but of course as we all know the primary focus is the presidential election. This privilege only occurs once every four years, and as Americans it is our right, nay, our sole responsibility to VOTE, so I hope you did just that.

Democracy is defined as the following:

Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives. Democracy allows eligible citizens to participate equally—either directly or through elected representatives—in the proposal, development, and creation of laws. It encompasses social, economic and cultural conditions that enable the free and equal practice of political self-determination.
The term originates from the Greek δημοκρατία (dēmokratía) "rule of the people",^[1] which was coined from δῆμος (dêmos) "people" and κράτος (kratos) "power" in the 5th century BCE to denote the political systems then existing in Greek city-states, notably Athens; the term is an antonym to ἀριστοκρατία "rule of an elite". The English word dates to the 16th century, from the older Middle French and Middle Latin equivalents.¹

No matter how you voted or what the outcome may be, you have the right and allowance to voice your opinion, state how you feel, and complain if the outcome was against your wishes, ONLY if you voted! If you didn’t take the time or the effort to fill out your ballot, then your opinion is silent; therefore, your voice should remain silent as well.

Our fore fathers diligently put in place our constitution, and therefore our constitutional rights. But if you aren’t going to exercise those rights, then it is no one’s fault but your own of what the outcome may be.

Our country is an incredible place to live, and the pride that Americans hold is astounding. Now I don’t claim to be a political guru by any stretch of the imagination. I know what I believe in, I know my rights, and I know that my constitutional duty is to vote. And with having done that, I now have allowed myself the freedom to discuss, or not to discuss, my political views.

We need to recognize and stress the importance of what those before us fought for, risked their lives for, and effectively made their dreams become our realities. We salute all of the fallen soldiers that have, are, and will put their lives in danger to maintain our structural freedom and liberty to vote through democracy.

With this gift that has been bestowed upon us, we hold our destinies in the palm of our hands.

"If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in government to the utmost." -- Aristotle

Now let’s play a little game, to see just how much of an American you are. Name the author of these quotes:

1) "...Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth."

2) "Information is the currency of democracy."

3) "The experience of democracy is like the experience of life itself-always changing, infinite in its variety, sometimes turbulent and all the more valuable for having been tested by adversity."

4) "I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."

5) "Democracy is a constant tension between truth and half-truth and, in the arsenal of truth, there is no greater weapon than fact."

Answers to quotes:

1)     Abraham Lincoln

2)     Thomas Jefferson

3)     Jimmy Carter

4)     Walt Whitman

5)     Lyndon B. Johnson

¹Wikipedia