America under siege
Dear editor:
Our country is under siege by the oligarchs of the world. The Supreme Court of the United States of America is slowly inching its way into the services of the rich. Their decisions have been disintegrating and shredding every last vestige of democracy in our republic.
SCOTUS has set itself up to be the final arbiter of what is constitutional and what isn’t. When it gave President Trump part of his attack on Islamic immigrants or visitors, the poem graven on the Statue of Liberty becomes a disgrace and a shameful offer of succor to the ones Trump will deny access to. Our “terrorists” are inside our country. The monuments to those who died to achieve status and equality under the Constitution are being defaced and decimated. People are dragged from public places that they should have access to by law; the offices of the elected officials the people voted to represent them. Hauled away by the police, even those in wheelchairs, exercising their right by the First Amendment to seek redress and complaint against the government slowly being sold off to the highest bidder.
It is unconstitutional to use public funds to assist a church in any form or manner. It’s called the Constitution of the United States of America.
The First Amendment states that Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people to peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. It seems this amendment is ignored more than any other.
Taking public money and giving it to any church sets a precedent that will only have long-term and devastating effects on people’s lives. If tax money is given to one church, then all churches have a right to be compensated in like manner. As a nonbeliever, what will my compensation be if my tax money is given to a church I neither believe in nor endorse?
The Fourth Amendment gives people the right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects, shall not be violated and no warrants shall be issued, but upon probable cause. Arresting people exercising their right to assemble is the first step down the slippery slope to fascism.
Watching the angry display of hate against those protected by law will bring this country down quicker than a shot across the bow.
What you think is your right. What you do to those you disagree with in public can be against the law and should be promptly and unequivocally, if it involves violence or the destruction of life or property, be stopped and all losses incurred by the person victimized by such hate crimes be fully compensated and the perpetrators held liable under the law.
I want my country back. I want to go to bed at night knowing that I’m secure in the fact that what I have and paid into will always be mine as long as I do no other person harm.
Judy Ladd Hot Springs