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Dear Editor:

In America, there are rights that are naturally ours — God-given Rights, as they are often referred to.

Among them is the right to speak out and to gather peacefully. Over the past two months, much has happened that has resulted in an outward attempt to abridge that right by our elected officials. We have been confined to quarters in the name of striking down a deadly disease caused by carelessness in another country resulting in sickness and death.

Our elected officials have chosen to use this situation to take control over aspects of living here that, for many of us, is overstated and historically unprecedented. Suggesting people need to be responsible and ordering them in how and where to live are two different scenarios.

The latter should be expected to be met with protests and anger. Americans have never been kind to dictators. Our principle existence in the U.S. is based solely on being free to move about, albeit we do have laws to make those moves reasonable and safe.

In Virginia, and a few other states, protesters have begun showing their displeasure in having their governors isolate them for undefined amounts of time and they are gathering in public to show their solidarity. One can only visualize futuristically, if this experiment of ordered behavior continues, Americans will rise to show just how little those orders mean to them. It should make clear, to an unwise politician, just what it means to be a proud American.

Peter Kapuscinski

Dillwyn