SENIOR: Seeing, and fearing

I’m a senior citizen, turning 80 this fall. I was taught civics in junior high, understood and retained its principles. Civics hasn’t been taught for years and that’s a shame. Because most people under 50 have no idea at all of what makes our Constitution great. Our Constitution isn’t great just because of what it says. Our Constitution is great because of the way it says it!

Our Founding Fathers could not have known what would transpire over the years. So they built a document that left room for changes. It has “wiggle room” for societal and cultural changes.

They created a Supreme Court to “interpret” the laws passed by Congress or the dictates of the president to ascertain if the laws or dictates were “constitutional.” The Constitution is a construct of “checks and balances” so Congress and the president were balanced in their powers and the independent Judiciary branch oversaw them both.

With the Senate bowing to the president’s every whim and a Supreme Court majority that usually sides with the president, it’s not balanced. That is contrary to everything that the Founding Fathers designed.

To be honest, I’m more afraid of this president than I am of the pandemic. And this COVID-19 scares the hell out of me! I doubt the president’s told the truth at any time in the past four years. But, paraphrasing Himmler, “If you tell a big enough lie, often enough, people will believe it.”

I fear for my children and grandchildren.

GILBERT BEYER

Sandpoint