By Dr. Robert R. Owens ——Bio and Archives--July 6, 2020
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Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.Will freedom survive? Or will our Republic like the Romans before us morph into something completely different? Instead of an empire we may become a dictatorship of the proletariat where those who dole out the equal shares paraphrase the haunting statement from George Orwell’s Animal Farm … “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” If the blues sweep the board in November, we may all end up singing the blues. Those who don’t learn the lessons of History are doomed to repeat the mistakes of History. Those who do learn the lessons of History are unfortunately doomed to watch everyone else repeat the mistakes of History. Hunkered in the bunker. Waiting for the rain. Keep the faith. Keep the peace. We shall overcome.
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Dr. Owens teaches History, Political Science, and Religion. He is the Historian of the Future @
drrobertowens.com
Follow Dr. Robert Owens on Facebook or Twitter @ Drrobertowens / Edited by Dr. Rosalie Owens