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A Gross Overreaction

I hope your readers paid close attention to the letters in the May 10 Courier concerning the establishment of a Guilford human rights commission. They make chilling reading in a country that values individual liberty.

It’s frightening that these people are serious. They effectively seek to be given authority over the rest of us to ensure we comply with their view of things. They assume their opinions are the correct ones and wish to impose them on all of us, even indoctrinating children in school into group think.

While graffiti and vandalism are clearly criminal, I doubt many see them as a major problem here in Guilford. Creating this new commission on the basis of this would seem to be a gross overreaction, which suggests to me a bigger agenda.

Supposedly we have a problem with hate speech. This is a very subjective definition, which would need to be specified, but by who? We would then need to think carefully before expressing an opinion, so as to comply.

This sounds like an insidious intrusion on our liberties and would be following the lead of European countries where people are frightened to speak up for fear of being overheard and reported to the authorities. Does anyone think this sounds like East Germany’s Stasi?

We are very fortunate in having our beloved Constitution, with its precious Bill of Rights, to protect us from government overreach. Establishing this body would be tantamount to creating a force of thought police, and that sounds like overreach to me.

I would hope our Board of Selectman would not entertain such a proposal, at least without it first being put to a vote.

David Roberts

Guilford