Editor, The Beacon:

Before any American is deprived of an individual right or a privilege abridged, the U.S. Constitution requires they be provided due process (the 14th Amendment).

Generally, procedural due process entails a jury trial or a hearing.

The government charges the defendant with a crime or violation. The defendant is notified and has an opportunity to defend himself. The jury then determines the facts. The judge enforces the law. Short of that, courts may not deprive anyone of their life, liberty or prosperity, or abridge the privileges they are entitled to as U.S. citizens. This includes the supreme courts in Colorado, Maine and other states.

Historically, it has been communists, fascists, monarchists and other authoritarians who advocated for governments and courts to have the authority to deprive people of their due-process rights (among other rights). History is replete with modern examples: Consider the “People’s Courts” operated by the Nazis and the communists in the USSR, as well as the Shariah courts that exist in the nation-states of the Muslim world today.

Remember, if the federal or state government or a circuit or a state supreme court can deny Donald Trump procedural due process, they can also deny you due process. The American Revolution started over similar abuses by the British government. Our courts and governments must avoid abuses of citizen rights.

In closing, the true “threat to our democracy” is not Donald Trump.

The true threat is those citizens whose authoritarian attitudes and advocacy would deprive other Americans of their life, liberties or prosperity.

Aegrescit medendo! (The remedy is often worse than the disease; do not burn down your house to rid it of a mouse.)

Bob Hoelscher

DeLand