To the editor:
If you drive by Gablicky Field, up the street from Gatchell’s pit, on the way to Salem, on a Saturday afternoon and you see 10 or 20 or 40 or more people standing out with signs, and you wonder why, week after week these crazy people stand out there, with their signs, asking you to honk, or wave, if you agree…
A lot of the signs say, NO KINGS, and the reason is, that we so love our democracy, we so love our republic and the rights and privileges — and responsibilities — that we have, that we don’t want to lose them. And it appears to us that we have a president who has no respect for the law, unless it suits his purpose:
He has said: “I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue“ and that the only limit on his power is his own morality…
No, sir, what constrains you is the Constitution, that nearly holy document that was a product of so many struggles and compromises.
And what should’ve constrained you, besides the Constitution, what constrained presidents before you, is common decency and respect for the other branches of government — the legislative and judicial.
The legislative — Congress — has not asserted its rights. Under the control of your party, and sometimes with the complicity of some members of the other party, it has virtually waived “the power of the purse,“ the power granted under the Constitution for Congress to decide how the money that ultimately comes from taxpayers gets spent. Instead, now the president unilaterally decides, depending on how he feels today or this hour.
And the judicial branch has not, or only intermittently asserted its prerogatives. The Supreme Court has become a virtual wing of the executive branch. And downstream judicial appointments have been made outside of the boundaries of the normal judicial appointment process (where the Bar Association and the Congressional representatives of that state suggest and vet appointments.) Instead, loyalty to himself is the only measure for this president.
The corruption of this administration and this president are almost unfathomable, though I think the current estimate is over $10 billion. What boundless greed.
So we stand out, week after week, because it seems important to say: “This is not normal. This is not acceptable. We do not accept it. I do not accept it.“
And this seems to us part of our responsibility as citizens in a free democracy — to peaceably assemble, to petition for change, as well as to vote and express our opinions that way.
And besides, it’s fun. We get to be creative and make up signs, some of them deadly serious, some of them more humorous, because after all, there’s something ridiculous about a lot of what goes on. We talk, and we give each other strength, and hope that in whatever small way, we can change things.
Because, as Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Alexis Soule
Front Street
