LETTER: Americans must take a stand against tyranny, brute force

To Ozaukee Press:

What can the children and grandchildren of the Greatest Generation do as our leaders create a world ruled only by power?  

FDR, Truman, Eisenhower,

Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2,

Obama and Biden each understood that the United States served as a bulwark against tyranny and brute force.

Now we face a defining moment testing whether such a role, in Lincoln’s words, can long endure. Trump’s, Putin’s and Xi’s plan to establish areas of global control calls to mind how the five families divided New York into crime territories. 

Words like human dignity and self-determination are mocked by those who insist the “real world” is governed only by strength, power and force. And, of course, there is money to be made by the president and his entourage if only we embrace Russia’s murderous dictator.

We can proceed down this road as others have done before us. We can ignore where this road leads, believing the consequences will fall only on others. And historians will study how a once great nation gave itself over to corruption for the sake of making billionaires into trillionaires.

Or, the children and grandchildren of the Greatest Generation can take a stand. If we withhold our votes for GOP candidates until such time as Trump stops sacrificing the people of Ukraine on his altar of self-engorgement, then we the people will demonstrate our devotion to our nation’s ideals. And in so doing, to again borrow from Lincoln, we show that the Greatest Generation’s sacrifices were not in vain.

Ralph Weber

Belgium