Letter to the Editor

90,000 days

By Drew Kartiganer, Newburgh
Posted 11/11/22

On Dec. 1, 2022 the United States of America turns 90,000 days old.  If our nation’s birth was the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, then Dec. 1, 2022 is 90,000 …

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Letter to the Editor

90,000 days

Posted

On Dec. 1, 2022 the United States of America turns 90,000 days old.  If our nation’s birth was the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, then Dec. 1, 2022 is 90,000 days after.

90,000 days is pretty cool and worthy of a moment to give thanks we live in the USA. Dec 1, 2022 will be less than 30 days after electing our leaders in the most basic demonstration of our freedom and self-determination; voting.  For those who take this for granted, consider 80% of the world’s population live under a dictator’s rule and, as in Ukraine, many would die to live in a democracy such as ours.

Yet our democracy remains far from perfect.  To quote Churchill “democracy is the worst form of Government to have ever existed except for and including all others.”  We face the choice between a democracy or dictatorship each day; dictatorships cannot survive where freedom exists.  A dictator can, however, seduce free people to give up their freedom with promises, threats, hatred, fear and violence. Nothing shows this more clearly than the internal division gripping our nation or the attack on the Capital Building of January 6th. Democracy is a fragile thing and “we the people” need to defend it.

Which leaves questions: can this country “conceived in liberty that all men are created equal”… “long endure;” will we defend our democracy so a nation “of the people, for the people and by the people shall not perish from the earth”; and will the USA survive to April 19, 2050? That date is 10,000 days after Dec. 1, 2022 and 100,000 days after July 4, 1776. Time will tell if our democracy makes it to then, add a digit and flip the odometer of the USA, again.