To the Editor:

Where are we?

It started with 9/11, when we were so devastatingly subjected to the fanaticism that has always festered in the world, albeit somewhere else. It awakened America to the fact that openness and mutual trust could no longer be assumed in the everyday world. And deterrent policies, technologies, and strategies were marshalled to prevent and prepare for violence.

Now, a quarter century later, the violence facing us is being generated by domestic factions: not only unstable citizens and extremist hate groups, but by our own federal government. The president and his ruling party have authorized doctrine to sustain a growing, oppressive control over this nation’s people.

Such doctrines permit Homeland Security to release masked, paramilitary forces on our streets to subdue potential violators and detain them without warrant. Executive orders permit the government to claw back federal funding based on the grantee’s research as well as its institutional “viewpoints.” 

As an aside, I’m also old enough to witness how communities across America have become more militarized since 9/11.

Reserves are deployed against the people they are to protect. Local governments have invested in impregnable armored vehicles; unmarked patrol cars with one-way windows cruise our streets. And community events increasingly include the display of the ordinance and material the local police have at their disposal.

Add this type of quasi-military subculture to what’s actually happening to our freedoms, and I think we’re nearing a dystopian world we never thought imaginable in America.

What can we do to turn the tide? Vote. Ask yourself if the candidates in your community have the background, credentials, and balanced views to perform their civic duties. Review budgets to see if allocations are reasonable and express the true needs of your community.  

Because what’s truly under siege is the heart of democracy itself, for which so many generations have dedicated or sacrificed their lives. A democracy that needs to be safeguarded for the betterment and well-being of all of us, “We the people.”

Robert Mason

Guilderland