To the Editor:
During these unprecedented times, we have sheltered in place not to spread the coronavirus. We have applauded health care workers, the first-line of defense. But we also need to give a standing ovation to Wisconsin’s citizens forced to put their lives on the line simply to exercise their right to vote.
Government leaders have taken oaths to protect our “. . . unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness,” yet Wisconsin’s legislature, its supreme court, and the U.S. Supreme Court failed to protect these rights, causing Wisconsinites to stand in severe rainstorms to vote in their state’s primary.
The leaders asked citizens to shelter in place, then forced them into long lines, inches from their fellow voters in circumstances that could have spread COVID-19. The voters cared more about our democracy and a foundational cornerstone – the right and responsibility to vote – than those in power to protect them.
In overturning Wisconsin’s governor’s attempt to postpone in-person voting due to the coronavirus, tens of thousands of Wisconsin voters were disenfranchised.
The Hilton Head Island/Bluffton Area League of Women Voters is proud to be nonpartisan, always working to empower voters and defend democracy. As such, we hope that the Wisconsin debacle will not be repeated in South Carolina.
We trust our state leaders to enact alternatives such as postponement of our primary elections should the virus still put our citizens at risk, the use of mail-in voting, and expansion of absentee voting.
Ruth Wilwerding
Voter Services Chair
Hilton Head Island-Bluffton Area League of Women Voters
To the Editor:
Just when we think that things will last forever, or that loved ones will always be around, life can change in an instant. Family members pass away. Health and beauty will go. Jobs, food on the table, financial well-being – all can vanish in a flash!
This current health crisis and recent tornado activity tells us so. Life on earth is transient.
So what does this mean to me? Never to take anything for granted.
Today, I see signs sprouting up all over, thanking doctors, nurses, police, firefighters, ambulance crews, and others. Well deserved.
After the 9/11 attacks, people loved the first responders. They applauded as their vehicles passed them on West Street in Manhattan. It did not take long before things returned to “normal,” and the general population took them for granted again.
So why is it that only when a crisis hits do we express our gratitude?
It’s no different with our Creator. Even worse. There would be nothing on this most beautiful and abundantly resourced planet if it were not for Him. The rich soils, the crops, the sun, the rain, humans, animals. Everything.
Yet the Creator is often left in the background. Rarely thanked and usually taken for granted … except in times of crisis.
So while abundant praise is being poured out for those on the front lines battling the coronavirus, let’s not forget God. Not now nor when things get back to “normal.”
(“Heaven and earth can pass away, but my Word will never pass away.” Matt. 24:35)
Gene Ceccarelli
Bluffton
