Letter from Andrew Hamill

Unity, Not Party,
More Important

Last month, I put statements in All Otsego for our country to heed the call of unity as well as speaking to you all about it. I firmly stand by my statements. I speak on the week before Election Day by saying that regardless of who wins and who loses in this election and other elections, we need unity.

If we are to have unity, we need to put our political parties and their agendas aside and come together for the sake of our country. When 9/11/2001 happened, we had unity which was, and is, a blessing in disguise.

“A house divided cannot stand.” This was not only quoted in the gospel of Mark but also by Presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson on two separate occasions. This verse clearly states that without Unity, we will become more divided.

In the Bible, Isaiah 1:18 states, “Come now, let us reason together.” If we as a country cannot reason, cannot listen to all sides, and simply cannot have unity, especially the day after Election Day, we will be divided based on putting party before self.

Our enemies look at our country and laugh in our faces due to the lack of unity and that we can’t get our act together.

Our allies look at us and give the qualm of, “if this country is not displaying unity then why do they have ‘We the People’ in the Preamble of the Constitution?” In short of that, and as I said before: Regardless of who wins and who loses in this election and other elections, we need unity now more than ever.

How we achieve this, I don’t know. Maybe an interfaith service or a kick in the pants might be the best two options to help us have unity back in our country.

Andrew “AJ” Hamill
City of Oneonta