To the editor,

Plain clothes, masked, and unidentified men (presumably ICE agents) snatched a woman in broad daylight and hauled her away in unmarked vehicles, seemingly because she was critical of the US government in a social media post.

There are markers as to how authoritarian a country becomes. We have crossed one more of those markers.

It seems like Americans only have two options. You can either speak out against these atrocities and violations of constitutional protections on people and be labelled a radical liberal for supporting the constitution or we can become a little more comfortable with government imposing authoritarian rule on our lives a little bit more every day.

We can make excuses.

"She probably isn't American, and the constitution shouldn't apply to non-Americans. It would never happen to me I am obedient to my president. If she didn't criticize the government in the first place this never would have happened."

The bottom line is about half of voting Americans are more and more comfortable with authoritarian rule every day and the other half are labelled as Marxists, socialists, communists, and violent radicals.

All those "freedom loving patriots" who imagined themselves as the heroes standing against the tyrannical dictator have joined the oppressors and cheer when these sorts of things happen.

Politics is irony.

Jacob Proue

Spring Valley