It is late summer, 2019, the third year that the Office of President of the United States has been occupied by one causing great concern among humanity around the world. We live here among people who have been handed freedom on a platter by our predecessors, and most of us have not had to turn a hand to live it and we have taken it for granted until now.

How fortunate we have been over the decades and the centuries that honesty and integrity have prevailed among a large percentage of our elected and appointed officials.

It seems that is no longer true.

I direct the reader to current events, and the facts underlying current events. It is difficult to sort through the muck, and to understand what is happening.

According to Jonathan Swift,“Falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

Study the events and look for the motivation of those taking action and of those remaining silent and inactive. Also, consider your true feelings — perhaps comparing your thoughts of today with those of your upbringing.

I am very concerned for my community, my country, for my family and friends, for our democracy. Each of us has work to do.

In her book, “Fascism, A Warning,” former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright cites history for us: “In 1918, Tomas Garrigue Masaryk was sworn in as president of an independent Czechoslovakia ... command(ing) a global reputation, despite the modest dimensions of the nation he led. Due to his age, his health declined even as the threat from the Third Reich grew — in the 1930’s, no fully democratic nation was more endangered.” He described the risks and his concerns this way:

“Democracy is not only a form of state, it is not just something that is embodied in a constitution; democracy is a view of life, it requires a belief in human beings, in humanity ... I have already said that democracy is a discussion. But the real discussion is possible only if people trust each other and if they try fairly to find the truth.”

Albright continues,“For all its shortcomings, there is no other form of government to which such words apply. It is up to us to remedy democracy’s faults when and wherever we can, but never to forget the underlying strengths.”

We must be alert to those who would destroy it, realizing that democracy has enemies who do not advertise that fact.

So, how can we deal with this? I have access to no training manual, but I do have my life’s experience. I was very fortunate to have been born when and where I was, in America, perhaps the very “best” country ever.

I was born to fine folks, who stuck together through thick and thin, and who lived honestly and with integrity all their lives. They made sure I received my share of both law and gospel, and I was educated in a very fine public school with a full complement of well educated and dedicated teachers. My education was limited only by my weak attention span, and not a full comprehension of the relevance of all that was shown me and my classmates.

As life gets more complicated and moves more and more quickly, I wish I had tried harder to study and learn about our country and how it operates.

It definitely cannot run by itself, and we should not assume that it will. Like Tomas Masaryk, I believe that democracy is a view of life, and I have faith in my fellow human beings. We must make democracy a topic of our daily discussions and make that fair effort to find the truth.

I so wish all of our elected officials would be trying fairly to find the truth. I am afraid some of them are truly only trying to find re-election!

We must engage in the democratic process and elect representatives that share our passion for democracy and the truth. Failure to do so will bring about the end of our republic.

Vern Schepmann

Holyrood Community

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