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What would you do if armed federal agents were pounding on your door? Not in a movie or a history book — but tonight. Your house. Your family.
History shows that free societies rarely lose their freedoms overnight. They lose them gradually, while citizens assume the institutions of democracy will somehow protect themselves.
People who have lived under authoritarian governments often say the same thing afterward: “We never thought it would happen here.” They trusted the system. They believed the law would protect them. They assumed democracy was automatic. It isn’t.
Democracy does not protect itself. It survives only when citizens insist that power remains bound by the law.
Warning signs appear when elections are attacked or undermined, when judges are threatened for doing their jobs, when journalists are treated as enemies rather than watchdogs, and when law enforcement becomes a political weapon instead of an impartial guardian of the law. These developments should concern citizens of every political persuasion, because the strength of a democracy is measured not by who holds power, but by whether the rule of law applies equally to everyone.
Freedom has never been automatic. Every generation must defend it.
That means paying attention. It means speaking out when it is uncomfortable. It means getting involved — organizing, participating and voting. Self-government requires vigilance and courage from ordinary citizens.
Democracy is not a spectator sport. It depends on citizens willing to defend the institutions that protect liberty.
Freedom survives only when ordinary people refuse to surrender it.
Dr. Joel E. Wells, Iowa City
John Cullen’s article “Scooping the loop” brought back some great memories for me. I was born in 1948 and grew up on an 80-acre farm three miles south of Menlo. My parents had bought the farm and buildings in 1944 for $5,000. At that time, Dad was still farming with horses, not acquiring his first tractor (a Case) until the year I was born.
Dad’s parents soon thereafter bought an 80-acre farm up the hill to the south of us, one other farm in between. Dad farmed that place, too. In August 1956, a terrible storm hit our area (I believe it was a derecho, but that term was unknown then), wiping out all crops and subjecting much other damage. Just the year before, my parents had reclad the exterior of our home built in 1914 with new aluminum siding. The hurricane force winds came from the north with golf ball sized hail and permanently dented the north side of the house. It also knocked out all of the windows on that side, leaving us with water, tree branches and twigs, and other debris on the interior floors of our home.
With it being too late to replant, dad went to work for Farm Bureau Insurance Company and stayed with them until selling the farm in 1970. He became a part-time farmer, reclaiming most of our land for pasture and alfalfa fields to raise pure-bred Hereford cattle, something not so prevalent in Iowa anymore. In the next few years, we no longer had a pickup and instead gained a second car, as dad needed one car most of every day.
By the time I got my driver’s license on my 16th birthday in the fall of 1964, both my older brother and sister were off to college. I was usually driving our1957 Dodge to school. We lived three miles from town. Now that was a large vehicle with the prominent fins of the time and bench seats which could accommodate quite a few high school kids.
Menlo’s (population at the time of 420) main street was about two blocks long, and that might be stretching it. So, on Saturday nights we went to the neighboring town of Stuart (five miles to the east) to “scoop the loop.” As the sign entering Stuart said, “Stuart, Iowa. Home of 1,500 good eggs and a few stinkers” Even though we were rivals in sports, there were a lot of friendships and some dating between Menlo and Stuart kids. So, it was great fun cruising back and forth on the main drag. Stuart also had a movie theater that showed films only on the weekends. And, they had a bowling alley. These were not amenities that Menlo offered.
A couple of years later, four of us high school buddies home from college trekked to Knob Noster, Mo., to see one of our teachers/ coaches who had relocated there. On a Saturday night we were standing on the sidewalk downtown talking to the town’s sheriff Albert (Knob Noster is slightly bigger than Stuart) and watching the local high schoolers scoop the loop. Two of the cars took off racing each other. We asked Albert, “Aren’t you goin’ after ‘em?” Albert said, “No. They’ll be back.”
Yep, that was scooping the loop.
Rick Osen, Bellingham, Wash.
If armed, masked, unidentified people break into your house without warrant or just cause and you’re sitting there with a legal gun, what do you do? Would you think someone was going to harm or kidnap you? If you shoot, you might get one, but you’re probably dead. Why have a gun if the law isn’t going to protect you? And yes, sometimes they go to the wrong address so no one is safe.
Under this dictatorship that the Rethuglicans built and love there is no rule of law. That went out when Ford pardoned Nixon. A pardon should be for someone who deserves it, not to prevent justice. That is exactly what happened when Dump pardoned all the insurrectionists.
There is no limit if he does what he wants, not what the law is. Don’t like it, well you voters put them in (unless the data people rigged it) and you can stop it by voting the Democrats in, who actually care about the common man. Remember the odds, the rich are 1% and we are 99%.
Dave Haynes, Duncombe
Kudos to Pastor Roland for pointing out some issues that glare out to me, regarding the current incarnation of Christian nationalism (yes, it’s reared its head before).
The framers of the Constitution, by merely inserting the mention of God in the document, might not have known how the interpretation of the meaning of faith could play out over 250 years. These people, lest we forget, were folks of the Enlightenment period, which questioned the validity of everything from politics to religion.
People of faith? Yes, but people who questioned how that faith was implemented in the framing of a nation. Thus, here we are today in another age where religion gets weaponized in government.
The old tactic of wrapping yourself in the flag and God is an old ploy that is in full force today. We are a nation of many religions and the freedom to practice those faiths, as constituted by such folks as James Madison, who also avowed for separation of church and state, again, as many of the early architects of the country.
When we misuse or abuse these boundaries to extremism, and granted, other countries do the same thing, we run the risk of bordering on autocracy, as we have done before to those with a long memory.
Thanks Pastor, for commenting on the ongoing issue.
Mick Polich, Storm Lake
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