Letter to the Editor | July 10, 2025

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Still a democracy?

Last week’s Beachcomber contained a commentary (“Anniversaries and Democracy”) stating that we still have a democracy. The writer is overly optimistic and doesn’t aim very high.

If one of us is not free, then none of us are free. Our democracy has been dying at least since 1941.

In 1941, Japanese Americans and citizens of Italian and German ancestry were imprisoned without due process of law, violating the Fifth Amendment.

In the fifties, the House Un-American Activities Committee forced people to testify by granting them immunity from prosecution, thus violating the Fifth Amendment. Persons have been incarcerated in Guantanamo for decades and denied due process.

As a result of the corrupt Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizen’s United, our elections are for sale and are being purchased by the wealthy. Most of our Congress-persons have been bought by the Israeli lobby. Our two party system has passed laws making it extremely difficult for other parties to get on the ballet. Both parties are owned by corporate lobbies and do not represent progressives.

The administration allows ICE to round up people, ignoring their constitutional rights. Our government supports Israel in its genocide against Palestinians. Our government stands ready to place the National Guard in opposition to our own people. The right to assemble and free speech are under siege, as phony accusations of anti-Semitism roar on.

Locate a copy of the Constitution. It will be filthy with mud.

Shelley Simon