Happy Hallowe'en!

 

Some Quotes on Freedom, Part 3

      Some more thoughts on freedom:

The enemies of freedom do not argue; they shout and they shoot.  (William Ralph Inge)

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day.  (David Foster Wallace) 

The boisterous sea of liberty is never without a wave.  (Thomas Jefferson) 

Some Quotes on Freedom, Part 2

      A couple more quotes to chew on:

The most dangerous illusion from which free men suffer it the widely held idea that freedom maintains itself by the mere fact of its being.  (Dorothy Thompson)

You never win freedom permanently.  You have to win it time after time . . . whether it's union right, civil rights, or equality for women.  We have to keep at it and at it.  (Millie Jeffrey) 

Some Quotes on Freedom

      Here are a couple of pithy quotes to ponder:

Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few.  Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend.  Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.  (Doris Lessing)

Freedom is not a state; it is an act.  It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest.  Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society.  (John Lewis)

 

 

Freedom or Fear?

      This is the month of cooler weather, trees losing their leaves, and scary holidays.  It's a time of transition and change.  But is the change something to fear or something to anticipate and prepare for?  That's something to ponder.

     In our country, we are on the cusp of another election.  Some of us receive our ballots early so that we can vote by mail.  In this time of decision-making, are we acting out of fear or avoidance, or are we participating in positive action?

     It seems that our times are shifting away from the normal and the comfortable.  With difficult and complex problems facing our society, the different approaches to solving them can be stark.  Is your candidate offering superficial ideas, blaming others (especially minority ethnic groups), or trying to control you with fear-based ideas?  Or is your candidate acknowledging that these problems are complex and will need all of us to solve them?  Do you feel afraid or empowered when you hear the candidate talk? 

     So, in this time of decision-making, I would invite you to empower yourself and take action.  Vote for those who support positive change that would help the least powerful.  Do not vote for those who invoke fear or lies or paranoia.  Opt for those who recognize that we are all in this together and we need to work together to protect what we hold most dear:  our freedom.  

     So, if you are called as a citizen to vote, please do.  This is important.  Do not count on others to do it for you.  Every voice counts.  Even yours.  Even mine.  Please vote.

(image courtesy of pixabay.com)