Thumbs Up: Perryville choosing its own fate democratically

Voters chose to go wet in Perryville last week, meaning alcohol sales will be legal there for the first time since prohibition.

It was a narrow margin of just seven votes, but it was enough. Now the city council is getting down to the brass tacks in order to ensure that whatever else happens, Perryville’s city coffers will at least stand to benefit from the sales.

This is how democracy is designed to work. When there’s disagreement over how something should be handled, we vote. Then, as a group, the people accept the outcome of the vote as law — even if there’s a razor-thin margin.

Those who don’t like the outcome can always continue to voice their dissent or work to change things in the future. But everyone agrees to operate under the law as decided by the people.

“United We Stand; Divided We Fall” is not just a pretty-sounding motto for Kentucky; it’s a sound philosophical stance. A united group of people pursuing a mediocre goal will still accomplish more than a divided group of people pursing an exemplary goal.

Thumbs Up: Battlefield gets its annual moment in the spotlight

The Battle of Perryville brought thousands of reenactors and attendees to Boyle County over the weekend, as the rolling Bluegrass hills became the center of the Civil War history world for a couple days.

As always, it wasn’t hard to find many different people, with many different reasons for participating, who traveled from many different places.

More than two-thirds of U.S. states were represented, along with at least one foreign country.

It was commonplace to find people from states that are hours or even days apart spending time together as if they were lifelong friends.

There’s a lot of division and anger in the U.S. right now, but a lot of that is due to the fact that we’re all huddling around our own campfires, imagining that the other side has it out for us but never actually talking to them to find out what they’re up to.

The camaraderie of strangers portraying opposing sides in a terrible war was a welcome reminder that we’re not all that different from each other and we could probably get along a lot better if we just spent some time together.