To paraphrase: “First they came for the mentally disabled, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t; then they came for LGBTQ+, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t; then they came for people of color, I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t; then they came for me - but nobody was left to speak up for me.”
We are approaching an election that will decide the future of our democracy - it’s not one you can sit out and hope for the best. We have authoritarianism on one side and democracy on the other. In rallies in 2016, 2020 and 2024, there have been those who say they would be OK with a dictator. Have they ever been to a dictatorship? I have and will always remember a trip to Yugoslavia in 1967 where there was little food in the stores and the people promenading resembled “the walking dead” vs. where we lived in Italy, where there was plenty and people were loud and happy!
Last year, I attended a talk by Charles Dunst on his book “Defeating The Dictators,” which I’ve read and have come to understand that those with weak wills, who are uneducated and willing to have their decisions made by a dictator see that as simplifying their lives. It isn’t, and to anyone who believes a claim that someone will be only a dictator “for a day,” I have a “bridge to nowhere” for sale.
My hope, as one who arrived in Alaska in 1955, is that we will give our three electoral college votes to democracy.
— Sam D. Combs
Anchorage
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