Editor, Sun-Sentinel:
It’s a strange time for America. Perhaps a wake-up call is in the works for those paying attention.
In some cities and states we are seeing two opposing governing extremes from duly elected local and state officials.
The COVID brought out mayors and governors who readily assumed the mantle of all-seeing, all-knowing dictators, allowing citizens to be only as free to go about their daily business as they saw fit on any particular day while determining which private businesses were allowed to be open and which to be closed. Some issued threats of fines, loss of business licenses or even jail time and used the police and law enforcement under their command to enforce their dictates against those who might dare challenge their decisions.
All of this was done under the guise of, “We’re all in this together!”
Then, of course, the riots and general mayhem came about in some of the very same cities, at which time the mayors and governors suddenly became libertarians of sorts and seemingly watchdogs of civil liberties, ordering the police under their command to stand down and watch lawlessness by thugs and hoodlums destroy government and private property with little or no consequence.
Effort by some of these same politicians to defund or close their own city police departments is to risk bringing back the vigilante justice of the Old West.
It’s no great stretch to imagine the same method of government on a national scale, where rule of law would be determined by the personal quirks and political beliefs of elected government officials who may favor or disfavor any citizen or group based upon sex, income, place of employment, race, religion, country of origin and/or where they fall on the political spectrum.
It’s the stuff third-world countries are made of, and it seems we, as a country, are balanced on the razor’s edge of destiny.
Wendell Carvan
Oakland
