Hands Off Our Democracy!

Letter to the LNP Editor; text as submitted April 11, 2025

My tax dollars are paying for the torture of human beings. I object! I am outraged, infuriated, disgusted. So far more than 200 men have been seized by operatives of the Trump-Musk-Vance regime, flown to El Salvador, and thrust into a hellhole of unspeakable cruelty and abuse. Few prisoners survive to come out alive.

As human rights organizations work to identify the victims of this lawless action, it has become increasingly clear that the vast majority have no criminal record, no charges filed against them, and no opportunity or legal representation to contest their removal. U.S. officials are in blatant violation of constitutional and international law.

I ask: Where are all the Republicans who advocate for “Christian values” in our country? Where in Christ’s teachings do they find instruction to capture children of God and subject them to unbearable torment? Why aren’t they standing up and declaring that Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, not to destroy them? By their silence they implicate themselves in this atrocity.

A murderous authoritarian cult is doing its best to gain complete control of our nation. If they succeed, the suffering of those who have been disappeared into captivity will be magnified a hundred fold. None of us is safe from the threat. But last Saturday upwards of three million of us rose up and said Hands Off! Hands off our democracy, our well-being, our laws, our science, our freedom. We are determined to prevail in the struggle, with liberty and justice for all.