Letter: Raise your voices in November

Once again, those who play God with the “Right to Life” — decreeing it a commandment over not only their own, but everyone else — are lording it over us, this time with the “Right to Death.” Goaded by Trump, they’re rushing back to pre-pandemic life, leaving face masks, physical distancing and the social contract in the dust, a dust that may very well turn to ashes — not only their own, but everyone else’s.

As His Sycophancy, Mike Pence smarmed about the recent rallies in Phoenix and Tulsa: “Freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble is enshrined in the Constitution, and even in a health crisis the American people don’t forfeit our constitutional rights. We’re creating settings where people can choose to participate in the political process.”

“It’s really important we recognize how important freedom and personal responsibility are to this entire equation, and allowing younger Americans to understand — particularly in the counties that are most impacted — the unique challenges that we’re facing, is important.”

As usual, the Trump-Pence party line is deviously tangled, but in attempting to unwind it, I realized that for many, “freedom and personal responsibility” are mutually exclusive. The “freedom” to repudiate masking and distancing regulations because one feels they infringe on his or her liberties is the very opposite of “personal responsibility” and puts us all at grave risk.

But then, his lemmings are just following their leader, who had “Do Not Sit Here, Please!” contractually-agreed-upon social-distancing stickers removed from seats before the Tulsa rally.

The pandemic will end and when it does, we’ll take to the streets, rip off our masks and embrace like mad. In the meantime, let’s keep each other safe, continue to unmask leaders who would conceal their ill intentions and put a vast distance between them and the rest of us in November.

Tom Cherwin
Saugerties