BY BOB BEARDEN
Another Memorial Day has come and gone. A day we honor our ancestors and those who gave their lives for our freedoms. The world around us has changed; we are all now addicted to the modern world and all the wonders modern technology has to offer. Has it made us better as a nation and as a people? School is still out on that.
We are a nation struggling to save our freedoms which are in peril. Books are being banned all over. A small fraction of our nation is dictating what we as a nation and a people can read or cannot read.
We are teetering on the brink of losing our hard-fought experiment in democracy. Because of a crazy liar we are fracturing into separate camps. Lies are now becoming the new normal. A minority party is spreading lies and conspiracy theories that once would have never gained an ounce of traction.
One of our two main political parties is flirting with fascism that millions of people died combating. States are passing laws curtailing freedoms we as a people and as a nation have battled against since the dawn of our nation.
We are a fractured and deeply divided country. We are standing on the very brink.
It is not inevitable that we destroy our long and difficult experiment in democracy, but it is not impossible to envision that we may well end it. We cannot keep normalizing falsehoods as facts. We cannot keep giving platforms to those who would destroy our democratic form of government. We cannot keep allowing truths to be trashed and lies to be elevated to the same level, offered as facts not in evidence.
It was Benjamin Franklin who noted that “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety!”
We must never forget what our sons and daughters have fought – and many have died – for: Our rights and our freedoms. We must not abandon them. Our nation on of rights and freedoms is in peril.
In the words of Abraham Lincoln, “United we stand, divided we fall!”
Bob Bearden is chair of the Board of Trustees of the Central Oklahoma Labor Federation, and a member of Mayflower Congregational Church, UCC in Oklahoma City.
