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I am 91 years old, and I’ve lived a good life. I have voted Republican ever since I graduated from the University, and I had donated generously to the party — until November 2016. I didn’t leave the Republican Party. It left me.
During my lifetime three things have occurred that I never would have thought could happen in the United States of America.
The first was the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. It was the beginning of World War II for the U.S.
We had a sense of security that no one would ever think of attacking us.
The second was 9/11. Terrorists from foreign countries boarded our airplanes and took control and crashed them into towers in New York City, the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. and a field in Pennsylvania. More than 3,000 innocent citizens were killed.
That event shattered our sense of security and changed our lives forever.
The third was on January 6, 2021, when a sitting President of the United States of America gave a speech encouraging a mob to attack the Congress of the United States with the intent of voiding the election and putting an end to our Democracy. Listening to the President’s speech and watching the attack on the Capitol was unbelievable. It was like watching something that would only happen in third world countries. I cried. Of the three events, in my opinion, the attempted insurrection of January 6 was the worst.
I have served in the military and have had members of my family and friends who gave their lives to preserve our democracy. I have lived and worked in countries with totalitarian rulers, and from that experience I have witnessed firsthand the fear their citizens have for arrest and imprisonment for speaking their minds. Freedom of speech is one of the precious freedoms we take for granted in this country.
It is imperiled here, as the violent January 6 mob action of the insurrection to stifle the voices of voting Americans so tragically demonstrated. To be clear: The insurrectionists were not speaking their minds. They were a self-appointed mob viciously physically attacking and assaulting the U.S. Congress to cancel fellow Americans’ votes and silence our voices. This is exactly how democracy dies and governments fall in third world countries.
And when I learned that a rally was planned in Washington D.C. on Saturday September 18 by a segment of our society to celebrate the attempted coup and the end of democracy, it felt like salt being poured into an open wound.
It is my hope and prayer that my family and all those who value and consider our democracy worth preserving continue to live and enjoy the many freedoms we have in this country.
Gordon Lindquist,
Grand Marais
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