After spending more than 20 years of my life defending the United States, the Constitution, and its people, it is difficult watching the destruction of our freedoms one by one.

The first attack on our freedoms started with the freedom of religion. Court decisions have removed religion from our schools and from our governmental properties. In doing so our ability to practice our religious choices are limited. The court decisions have been made in the name of separation of church and state. The U.S. constitution says nothing about separation of church and state. What the Constitution does say is: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof …” Court decisions have prevented us from exercising our chosen religion in public places are in direct conflict with the First Amendment.

Free speech is under attack by the so-called political correctness groups. These groups require that you use certain language to describe a given group or situation. Their goal is to curtail free speech. What is more egregious, today the institutions of higher learning are now editing the speech that can be used on their campuses. Institutions of higher learning should be by nature a place of diversity of thought and speech encouraging both rather than limiting either.

Our right to bear arms has been under attack for several years. Many on the left want to limit what arms we can and can’t own. Many believe that if the liberal/progressive contingency could, they would remove ownership of all firearms from the citizenry. The question then becomes, what don’t they understand about the Second Amendment’s “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” They would be better served to follow the dictates of George Washington’s statement of, “A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined;” … “Attacks on ownership and use of semi-automatic weapons are misplaced. Many have said, “the gun is not the problem, the nut behind the gun is the problem.” They are correct.

We must put a stop to the erosion of our freedoms. Many of the liberals want to control our every move. If we don’t put a stop to the loss of our freedoms, then in a few years we will be under the control of tyrants much like many communist countries and will see the destruction of our way of life.

Ray Shamlin

Rocky Mount