Children of Liberty: We must step out of party labels
Written by Scott Allegrini | | lett@toledofreepress.comCongratulations to President Obama or Romney.
I write this as the votes are being counted, about 8 p.m Nov. 6. I wanted to write before the final results for one reason. While I personally believe that another four years of President Barack Obama will do great damage to our country, as I’ve tried to point out in columns these past weeks, this is more about “We The People” than who controls the White House and Congress.
Whether President Obama won re-election or Mitt Romney did the impossible, our country faces hard times in the near future. Now that the election is over, the hatchets need to be buried and we need to join our neighbors to pull together to face the coming tough times. Once we get away from the emotion of this election, I hope that we can once again remember that we are all Americans, and while we may disagree on how much government should be involved in our lives, we all love our country and want the best for every citizen.
All that being said, we will disagree and we will have to be able to disagree without being disagreeable.
As a totally engaged American and a conservative, no matter who wins the election, on Nov. 7 I will be doing the same thing — working to educate and activate fellow Americans. The principles that founded this country do not change whether we have President Obama or President Romney.
It is the principles of freedom and liberty that make America great: being responsible for your own future, being able to dream and achieve a better life for your family. We have to unite on the issues that transcend political parties. I think we can all agree that $16 trillion in debt is an immoral burden to pass on to our children. I think we can all agree that spending trillions of dollars on wars and military bases in countries that hate us is not a wise investment. I think that we can all agree that unless we make meaningful changes to Social Security and Medicare, these programs will bankrupt us. I think that we can all agree that the school systems in this country, and especially in urban areas, are embarrassments. I think that we can all agree that big business should not get special tax breaks and loopholes. I think that we can all agree that the best way to increase tax revenue is to have more people working and earning money. I think that we can all agree that big banks should not be bailed out when they make bad bets. I think that we can all agree that our society has become more coarse and has lost common decency. If we can agree on even half of these then we, Republicans, Democrats and Libertarians, can work together to make this country much better.
What worries me is that the rancor and divisiveness of the past decade makes us opponents and not fellow countrymen. From the beginning our founders warned us about the destructive power of party politics. They talked about how the parties would divide us and pit us against each other. In so many ways, our founders were fortune tellers.
We have to be able to step out of our party labels. We are not Democrats or Republicans, we are Americans first and foremost. The parties pit us against each other, and they need us that way so we don’t notice that the politicians are raiding our treasury, using taxpayer dollars to bail out corporations, sending our troops to war without ever declaring war, propping up the Ponzi scheme that is Social Security and doing a terrible job of educating our children. They have divided us so that we argue over silly things while the ship is sinking under our feet.
As we decompress from this election season, we must find a way to remove ourselves from the “ us and them” divide that the parties have created.
That is not to say that we will agree on everything, but as long as we agree on the important things, you and I can change this country.
We can stick together or we can stay divided. The choice is ours.
Tags: Barack Obama, Children of Liberty, Mitt Romney, Scott Allegrini
Scott,
I spent 15 years in the Army, Army Guard and Army Reserves so some fool could chase my wife down the street on election day in his car, use negative gestures and honk his horn because we had the wrong candidates sticker on our car. We have a great deal to over come.
This comment was posted on November 9th, 2012 at 10:46 am