1. United States
2. Pa.
3. Letter

I write to you today troubled about the current path our executive branch has chosen to walk. I’m an Emergency Medicine physician and a Bioethicist, a "man of the mind" who believes that decisions should be based on logic and reason, rather than force. The recent news that the President intends to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military troops to Minneapolis is, frankly, madness. I believe what this country needs to thrive is to retain the ability for its citizens to speak without fear of military reprisal. To treat American citizens—regardless of their political persuasion—as enemy combatants on their own soil is a violation of the social contract. This action essentially upends our expectations of civil liberty in the stroke of a pen. I write to you angry, and frustrated. While I support attempts to maintain order, this type of a change with really no public input is not something I support. A conversation about this, at least, could have been had. Instead, we are presented with a fait accompli that suggests dissent will be met with the boot of the state. We cannot ever be truly secure, no matter how many safeguards are put into place. But to try to convince the populace that they are safe by deploying the military against them is a fallacy; one trades their freedoms for more “security”. I believe the price is now too high. A government that requires the threat of lethal military force to quell political dissent is not a government of the people, but something opaque, unclear, and frankly undemocratic. I believe you have a choice in front of you. You can allow this to become the new norm. Or, you can stand up for the America I dreamed of—the one envisioned by Jefferson and Franklin—where the rule of law outweighs the whims of the powerful. From the corner of those who feel hard pressed to recognize the democracy we live in, stop this madness.