To the editor:
As the election nears and the rhetoric ratchets up, the drumbeat increases; the right speaks of the terrible left, the left speaks of the terrible right.
I grew up at the end of the Depression and the start of the Second World War. I lived though that war as a kid, and if you know anything about kids, they watch and see everything that's going on around them.
Here is what I saw: Fear and worry — and working together, along with a love for our country, everyone working together for the common good and the full support of "our fighting men."
Today, I feel that that fear has reared its head again, but this time we are divided and brickbats of words are flying from one trench to the other.
We have a president who has received more scorn then I have ever heard rain down upon any other president.
We are not working together, we are working apart and the gap is growing wider between us. We are becoming a nation divided, with cries of racism and fascism being yelled across the lines. I fear that we are not going to survive this era as a country of freedom, but as a country of servitude under strong power, either the left or the right.
I have seen what can happen in other countries when we get like this. Vote for whom you want — but vote with the idea that this country cannot fall. Vote for the country.
PHIL RAMSEY
Lexington, S.C.
(formerly of Gloucester)
