Editor, Gazette-Journal:
On July 4, 2024, we celebrated our 242nd birthday of the United States and rededicated ourselves to freedom:
—Freedom from the domination by an authoritarian,
—Freedom from Trump’s GOP attacks on women, immigrants, people of color, gay people, Muslims, anybody who opposes them and anybody he does not like,
—Freedom from Trump’s and the GOP’s lies and misinformation,
—Freedom to work and live without discrimination, harassment and violence because of gender, race or religion,
—Freedom of religion,
—Freedom to get medical care when you or your children are sick or prior conditions (save the Affordable Care Act),
—Freedom to use contraceptives as you wish,
—Freedom to earn a living wage, to attend college or get job training, and to retire in security (save and improve Medicare),
—Freedom from a rigged economy in which the top 1 percent own more than the bottom 99 percent combined,
—Freedom so that every earner, including corporations, pay their fair share,
—Freedom to marry whomever you choose,
—Freedom to make decisions about your own body,
—Freedom to send your kids to school without fear for their safety,
—Freedom for our school children to learn unbiased or slanted history,
—Freedom from mass immigrant deportations, which will decimate our economy,
—Freedom to breathe clean air, to drink clean water, to live on a habitable planet by continuing reasonable regulations and preparations to overcome climate change,
—Freedom to elect your leaders without the rich, or foreign governments, choosing them for us,
—Freedom from use of military against U.S. citizens,
—Freedom from being harmed from discontinuance of EPA, FDA, NOAA, FBI, Homeland Security,
—Freedom to speak, to protest and to publish without the threat of violence, and
—Freedom to vote in a fair process for our representative government.
Vote for freedom. Vote for Harris/Walz/Kaine/Mehta.
Jim Knupp
Hartfield, Va.