Letters submitted by BDN readers are verified by BDN Opinion Page staff. Send your letters to letters@bangordailynews.com
In her letter of Jan. 17-18, Susan Reitman writes about ICE agents and what she would do if she were the president. “I would ring off the area with the US military with orders to shoot to kill!”
Following is feedback about some of her statements in that letter.
Emphatically, I want her to know that people are not being paid to protest ICE and the actions of the present administration. Please know that I, for example, am a nurse who peacefully shows up for protests to express my opinion. I am not paid to protest, nor is anyone else there.
My family were all immigrants: John Howland on a ship from Plymouth, England in 1620, a load of Huguenots fleeing religious persecution in France.
Does she really want young soldiers to “shoot to kill” protesters who object to ICE’s tactics, heavy weaponry, lack of deescalation skills, and $50,000 sign on bonus (our tax money)? I don’t want to be shot and die just yet.
Does she really mean to call people “trash” – people who are doing the heavy work here, like roofing, agriculture, nursing? Immigrants like the cardiologist Bernard Lown, the inventor of the cardiac defibrillator, who immigrated from Lithuania to Lewiston in 1935 at age 14?
If her life in midcoast Maine has been hurt by people she feels are trash, or are afraid, I volunteer to come and listen to her stories, feel her pain, and buttress her.
Emily Wesson
Belfast