May 17 will matter like no other day — vote!

We live in interesting times, times in which the word “liberty” means the exact opposite of the definition given in the dictionary, in which “patriots” are the very people our forefathers fought against and warned us about and where the proud flag of our nation has come to denote the antithesis of the principals upon which this nation was founded. We live in interesting times … and how we vote, or don’t vote May 17, 2022, will matter like never before in our nation’s history.

It is a time when the word “conservative,” as applied to politics, means authoritarian, when the so-called “good” conservatives more closely resemble McCarthy, Stalin, Hitler and Mao than Ronald Reagan. Where locally self-serving, do-nothing radical grandstanders such as Heather Scott and Janice McGeachin receive high acclaim for stirring sparks but doing nothing.

It’s an age when an elected group, the Bonner County Republican Central Committee, buys advertising endorsing their “good” far right wing candidates rather than their best or most qualified, where an opaque private group, The Idaho Freedom Foundation, touts itself a qualified arbiter of legislative efficacy yet lends its support and spends only on those candidates willing to crow their loyalty to its own heady morals as sent us by God himself.

There are too many such people in our halls of power, state and federal, doing nothing constructive but very effectively creating non-existent monsters to roil the weak-minded who hear but don’t think; the boogey-men; critical race theory, brown immigrants, abortion, gay rights, cancel culture, librarians peddling smut. We need a wall.

There is little to no supporting evidence to any such things, but it works to keep their conspiracy-minded base agitated, afraid and donating.

People of discernment and logic don’t have to guess oppressive intent, they can see it in the myriad laws of oppression being enacted of late by Republican legislators in Washington, D.C. and in the legislatures of the several states, all making it harder for those of different mind to vote, of different color … degrading the rights of citizens who don’t fit the mold, who don’t follow “the one true God” in this diverse nation of many and in a nation founded on the ideal of religious freedom, whose government deliberately and without malice separates church and state.

The world saw “righteousness” prevail just 83 years ago when a self-described National Socialist Party invaded without provocation an adjoining nation, setting off World War II.

Today, our ally in that global war, Russia, a Communist nation, has without cause or provocation attacked an adjoining sovereign nation.

The words change. The meaning of words change. But the deeds remain the same.

The aggressor seeks to impose its mores on an unwilling people and attempts to beat or cheat them into submission; that is tyranny and I will ever stand against it.

They who stand up against the aggressor, who fight and die to defend their rights, their dignity, their homes and what they believe; they fight for liberty. I will always stand on their side.

In a nation founded upon the ideal that all men, all citizens, are created equal, there should be no man who thinks or insists that he or his kind are somehow a little more equal than any other. You are not.

To assert otherwise is tyranny.