EDITOR:

These cold dark mornings don’t make it easier to get up. Could be worse.

What if you awakened at 6 a.m. to loud pounding and shouts at your front door? Half asleep, stumbling to the door you sense these aren’t calls for help but demands for entry, threats of harm if you don’t open up.

Now close to the door, you see two uniformed men holding rifles pointed at your head. Behind the two you can see red flashing lights on the front lawn and the street in front of your house. What’s going on?

That’s how it was for the arrest of Roger Stone, 66: 29 uniformed police, 17 police cars with flashing lights including two armored vehicles were present. They pulled his hands behind his back and cuffed them. Barefoot, in pajamas, he was marched into his front yard. Then they got his wife: not cuffed, but escorted barefoot in her nightgown into the front yard.

And all this under the bright lights and cameras of CNN!

If this happened to you, how violated, attacked, exposed would you feel? How terrified, surrounded by uniformed men carrying assault weapons, barking orders, utterly insensitive to your privacy or human rights?

This level of trauma is sufficient to trigger PTSD in many men and women. We’re talking at least sleep disturbances for months. Truly a harmful experience of extreme powerlessness and vulnerability.

For what reason? The man didn’t have a prior arrest. He did not own a gun. He was being arrested for a non-violent crime. His attorney was in contact with the local police. Normal practice was advise the attorney to have his client turn himself in.

No matter our politics, this episode should trigger strong discomfort. If this can happen to any non-violent citizen, it can happen to you or me, my kids or yours.

Our nation is a democratic republic. That means we have the freedom and responsibility to speak up. Deitrich Bonhoeffer said, “Not to speak is to speak.” If we don’t voice disapproval, our silence communicates approval.

When you consider sending email, text or phone calls to your congressional reps, is there any stress over our government recording and collecting your responses? If so, that’s proof you need to voice your objection now. Otherwise, what will happen to our culture, our beloved country?

We are at war. Time to stand for those we love.

Lynn P. Hansen

Escanaba