From: Zack Ellison
Columbus
I’ve been watching the country’s reactions to the mostly peaceful demonstrations for justice and equal treatment of non-white people – in the way they are questioned, arrested, and handled by our own law enforcement men and women.
The treatment of non-whites is very different from the way white people are treated during questioning or an arrest, and it is not fair or just. This difference of treatment must be fixed, and many in this country are tired of the mistreatment of people of color, as the Black Lives Matter demonstrations have shown.
It is our right, under the constitution, to peacefully demonstrate, and to work to make changes to prevent the ways non-white people are being treated. I support this action, and I hope that all Americans will support changes in the policing policies needed to prevent people from being choked, and/or shot to death, when there is no violence during questioning or an arrest.
The area that Americans should be deeply concerned is the recent sending of federal troops into Portland, Oregon, when they were not requested or needed. These were alleged Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents who entered the city without any notification to the governor, or mayor, and were wearing full military camo uniforms without visible ID. They used unmarked vans to arrest demonstrators without authority to do so.
In the past, these actions would have been condemned by the United States as being tactics used by an authoritarian government, and it should remind us of old news clips of the German Stormtroopers in WWII.
We are better than this, and this action has demonstrated that we are only one president away from becoming a dictatorship. We must change our elected officials to ones who will follow the U.S. Constitution, and not feel like they have sole authority, without checks and balances, over the three independent branches of government. We must return to a country that cares about justice for all.
