Thankful for Our Freedoms

Posted on November 1, 2020

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As we approach Thanksgiving and the coming Holiday season, and setting aside the chaos of the year, we are reminded of the many things we are grateful for.

With Veterans day in mind, I am thankful for our troops. Many risk their lives daily to safeguard us all. Honorably serving their country, missing key memories such as family gatherings, the birth of children, and even the loss of loved ones.

The sacrifice of these brave men and women who serve this country is, and always has been, truly remarkable. They start each day with the knowledge that it may very well be their last; but persist anyway. Someone once wrote that, “when a person joined the US military, they wrote a check to the United States of America for the amount of, up to and including their lives”. God bless them all.

Let us keep them in our thoughts as we gather around our tables this holiday season – as they will be here and abroad sacrificing their holidays to secure our safety and freedom, giving us the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”.

I, for one, am grateful for the freedoms and rights we wake up to each day. We can come and go as we please. We select the food we eat, the clothes we wear, and where we lay our heads. We can make conscious decisions on our livelihood and how to spend our earnings. We can choose our hobbies, how we prefer to worship or not, and who we marry or not.

We have the basic right to knowledge. We have preference to choose how we expand our minds and skillset, where we elect to educate ourselves, what disciplines we choose in school, and how to apply them to our chosen occupations. We have the right to apply to any school or job without prejudice.

We awake daily with the right to freely voice and express our opinions. The call of free speech is used a lot these days but seems to be so commonly misrepresented.

We have the right to a fair, unbiased, and speedy trial, and the right to legal representation.

We have the right to vote. A right that grants us the power to appoint who will represent our voices locally, state-wide, and nationally.

Each day we wake up in a beautiful country with reassuring optimism from these rights.

While life does not always prove to be perfect, we are so lucky to live in a country that is not war-torn. A country that prospers, where each-and every one of us is granted these rights. And, with hard work, determination, and maybe a little luck, we all have opportunities to live our own American Dream. America is truly diverse nation of nationalities and cultures. That’s what makes us such a great country, and I am thankful and very proud to be an American.

I wish you and your loved ones a wonderful holiday season filled with love and gratitude.

 

Yours truly,

State Representative Gale Mastrofrancesco
80th Connecticut General Assembly District
Proudly Serving Wolcott and Southington

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