Tyranny for citizens

Dear Editor,

Gary Benson (Open Forum 10/26) is right to find my idea disturbing that "OUR rights as citizens" are being removed by our own government. But that is what's happening.

In September Bush demanded -- and our obedient Congress gave him -- the authority to dump the rights of any of us.

If Bush or his agents decide that Mr. Benson or I have terrorist tendencies or the possibility of terrorist connections, they can just order us picked up.

They don't have to warn us or give us any explanation. They don't have to tell our families what has happened to us.

We will get no access to lawyers or to anyone else. They can even torture us if they want to -- and it seems they often want to.

When that begins to actually happen our rights and freedoms will be gone, and what we will have here will no longer be "America." So Benson is right to find the idea disturbing.

But it's not just an idea; it is legal authority Bush has demanded and our elected representatives have already given him.

Whatever Rush may say, that's not liberal nit-picking. That has for a month now been legal fact.

Fortunately we have at least one more election in which to send the message that tyranny is not an acceptable standard of government in America.

Nor for that matter are dishonesty, corruption, and incompetence.

It is time to vote for a major correction of course in this country, and truly our prosperity and our freedoms -- and those of our kids and grandkids -- depend on it.

Larry Harvey

McCook