Was the Kent State massacre justified?
Dear Editor,
I heard the story from a friend of a friend. He was there on Kent State campus at the time that troops killed four innocent civilians. Student protestors had harassed the troops for an entire week. The troops’ hair trigger finally went off. Neil Young wrote “Four dead in Ohio.” The deaths enraged our nation. This is the America that I remember as a young man.
Today’s America is different. The United States Supreme Court has chosen to debate whether it is legal for a President to order troops to deliberately kill those who protest administration policy. Lower courts have declared, in an incredibly detailed ruling, that the President is not above the law and cannot legally kill his opponents. But at least four members of the court think that we should debate the issue. Tucker Carlson has stated “leadership requires killing people.” One Presidential candidate has discussed shooting people on Fifth Avenue.
The fact that SCOTUS has chosen to debate whether it is lawful for the President to kill anyone who opposes the President’s ideology, including not only protestors but also sitting Senators or governors, is scary. Putin killed Navalny and Prigozhin. Four members of our highest court will consider if killing of political opponents is normal.
The real issue is loyalty to an authoritarian regime. If a President appoints judges to the Supreme Court based primarily on blind loyalty to the wishes of that President, then morality and law become subservient to the darker angels of our conscience.
Our Founders rebelled against the abuses of an authoritarian regime headed by King George III. In our Declaration of Independence, we stated that the King has wrongly made Judges dependent on his will alone. The action taken by our highest court clearly favors the interests of one Presidential candidate. Their unwritten loyalty pledge to that candidate is like the loyalty given to King George III by the British judges in America prior to the Revolutionary War.
Traditional American justice and the rule of law are fading. Many say that the Kent State killing of unarmed civilians was justified and that Putin had the right to kill his opponents. Tucker Carlson and the United States Supreme Court have set the table for a new authoritarian America.
All hail the King.
Dale Leitzke
Menominee
