When law-abiding, hard-working people of a free country massively arm themselves, and learn to shoot a gun in order to protect their families from a self-serving government that no longer works to protect the people, the continued existence of a free and civil society is questionable.

Most Americans go to work every day and operate as a cohesive unit. The majority recognize each other as human beings, not as black, white, female, male, gay, straight, Hispanic, Chinese or any other physical characteristic. We say good morning and stand side-by-side while respecting each other as individuals. We have learned over time; life is more valuable than a prejudiced mentality.

I have observed how the loss of life deeply affects us all. When today’s media selectively reports an event, exploiting a story as if it were occurring throughout society, a false scenario is created that is not for the good of the people. Yet, we keep foolishly believing the people elected to office are going to work to calm the extreme reactions and help our society move towards common ground.

If I have lost faith in any section of our society, it is the massively wealthy politicians who pretend to care about our society while depicting citizens as the greedy people. I believe many politicians need to look in the mirror they seem to have covered.

Instead of presenting facts and allowing intelligent people to make-up their own minds, many political figures fail to discuss the unbiased facts of disturbing events and become a destructive force working to control the minds of the vulnerable in society. Multi-cultural events occur throughout our society. Failure of the media to present all events equally escalates the dangerous division that has occurred within our country. Propaganda of repeating the same slanted information over and over is a manipulation of the truth.

The citizens of this country can use their intellect to assess, analyze and logically recognize the truth behind events that are unfolding daily. Failure to use our minds will turn us into puppets of the government. We will become robots without a voice.

“We The People” do not have to stay on opposite sides of entrenched political views. We can stop judging each other and meet in the middle as an intelligent society that respects each other.

“We The People” do not have to continue to be manipulated by politically driven agendas. Instead, we can work together to place people in office who will genuinely work to unify our society. Many members of Congress have spent considerable years in Washington amassing wealth and serving themselves instead of serving the people.  We must stop this practice by imposing term limits and opening the floor to new ideas and solutions designed for the country not the politicians.

Rhonda Byrd
Bristol