Photo Credit: CNN.com
By Rabbi Eric E. Walker
As I filled out my Selective Service Card for the draft on my 18th birthday in January, 1970 I was neither old enough to vote, nor old enough to buy alcohol in my home state of Pennsylvania. Here I was a sophomore at Penn State University and was hoping to get a Student deferment, but did not refuse to obey the laws of my country and sent in my paperwork. It was not only my duty as an American citizen, it was the law. I did not agree with our policies in Vietnam. I did not want to go into the military, but the form did not ask for my opinion. The form asked for my obedience to the laws of the nation who took my family in when we were being persecuted for being Jewish in Eastern Europe. Gathering together whatever they could take aboard ship my mother’s grandparents and their 6 children arrived in 1904 and were processed through Ellis Island and became citizens of the United States of America. Later, my father’s family made a similar journey from Hungary. My immigrant grandfather served in the US Navy in World War I and my Hungarian father served in the US Army in World War II. They became citizens with the right to vote and to serve their country – their new place of refuge against the tyranny that drove them from their ancestral homes.
Today, there is a cry to give the vote, the most precious of our freedoms to those who will never register to serve this country in times of war or even serve on a jury. There is a move to bypass all that goes with being an American and hand off the very right that keeps this democratic republic a free nation without requiring any of the costs associated with the right to vote. We cannot let this happen. Not now. Not Ever.
The road to independence and the survival of that independence for the past 243 years has been paid for with the shed blood of those who fought for the right to vote. They were willing to pay the price for freedom. If you want the right to vote, earn it by legally entering the United States and agreeing to obey its Constitution. Join me and millions of others whose shaky, scared hands signed their name to commit to be willing to pay the ultimate price for freedom. This is the American Way and has been since this nation was born.
Come, you who desire a better life. Come, you who are persecuted. Come, you who want the American Dream, but come the same way we came willing to do all that was required of a citizen, not just the right to vote. Come and serve. Come and work. Come and vote. We welcome you here, but to every politician willing to give away this precious right to vote and determine America’s future, I say, PLEASE LEAVE. You have forgotten what it means to be an American citizen. Go and sleep off your delusion that everything can be free for all. And, when you awake, remember that the right to vote is given only to citizens who are willing to serve their nation with their lives. That is our history. You were elected by that system and I pray that same system will replace you in the next election. Happy Independence Day!
Rev/Rabbi Eric E. Walker
Executive Director/On-Air Host "Revealing the Truth”Igniting a Nation, Inc,
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