Limit elections, reduce freedom

Dear editor:

Consider Marathon. Not the Elmore County business. Not the 26-plus mile race that celebrates the famed and purported run to the death of the Athenian Pheidippides. Marathon -- the first battlefield where free men gathered to fight and in so doing displayed Democracy for generations to come and in that noble and courageous display the aspirations of every free man since have their root.

The year was 490 B.C. and the battlefield was some 26 miles from Athens, Greece.

The Persian forces of King Darius, commanded by his generals, was the most feared, best armed, and most well trained army in the world. No country had been able to withstand or survive Persian attacks and all who fought and lost, or surrendered, became slaves or were killed. That day at Marathon there was some 26,000 Persian infantrymen plus heavy battle cavalry. The Athenians numbered roughly a third of the Persian infantry yet they chose to live, or die, as free men rather than submit to Darius. The Athenians won the battle and freedom was illuminated.

One of the primary reasons for the single Greek city-state of Athens to take such an apparent impossible military position was the attitude and persona of Darius, who deemed himself above all law.

In fact, he was the law and a self-proclaimed deity who believed himself superior even to nature.

The Greeks called it outrageous arrogance by using a single word to describe such arrogance -- hubris. Such arrogance is still the enemy of free people today.

Free people still stand together to defeat hubris.

The Battle of Marathon is fought again and again at the ballot box when free people proclaim their choice.

Limiting an individual's ability to vote is not freedom.

Restricting a voter's candidate choice is not freedom.

Pressuring, coercing and dissuading those who have declared candidacy so as to limit the voter's choice is not freedom.

That is outrageous arrogance.

Our Marathon is the Primary in May -- enough of this hubris.

Marie McMonigle