Rights threatened everywhere we turn

It is amazing to me to see the destruction of the U.S. Constitution happen right before my eyes. Even though it has been under attack for some time, what is now happening is a full-throttle assault.

The First Amendment is only one sentence long, so it doesn’t take much time to see the blow the Department of Health and Human Services leveled at religious liberty in February. The Archdiocese Of Chicago recently took out full-page ads in local newspapers to state this is the biggest threat to religious freedom in history because this ruling limits expression of religious thought to the physical confines of a church. Just before that, the National Defense Authorization Act simply took away our Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights to due process and a fair trial (search “detention w/o trial”). Then the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the new health care law says that I and my fellow citizens can be taxed on our behavior or lack of behavior.

Now we are threatened with loss of our Second Amendment right to maintain and bear arms to defend our families or go hunting. This is a very real possibility through provisions in the U.N. Small Arms Treaty our president will likely sign. If that happens, what is left if not an encroaching police state not unlike that in Austria and Germany in the 1930s? Knowing all of this, it is a wonder to me that anyone would consider having and raising a child today.

Michael Howard

Palatine