To the editor,

As a youth I was active in the 4-H and enjoyed competing in the 4-H Radio Speaking contest. We were given a theme and then wrote and delivered a speech on it. One year the theme was freedom. I don’t remember what I wrote, but I remember the winning speech even now, after 50 years.

It opened with a couple of suspenseful paragraphs in which a man risked his life to escape a repressive country. Shots rang out! He saw an American flag and ran for it. At last he had what he had wanted all his life: Freedom!

That’s the America I grew up in. A haven, a beacon, a city on a hill. No ICE taking on the role of the Gestapo or Stazi. No one being disappeared, no one denied due process, no one denied their birthright citizenship.

I’d like our flag to once again be the one that the world recognizes as a symbol for justice, fairness, rule of law, kindness, compassion and democracy. Under Republican leadership, we spiral downward every day closer to the country from which that brave person in the story was running. Even today, six democratic countries have issued warnings to their citizens advising against travel to the US. Soon we will be the country those longing for freedom will risk their lives to escape. 

Maureen Ash

Town of River Falls