Letters to the Editor

Letter: Eastman’s allegiance

I saw the recent article that Rep. David Eastman proudly claims membership in the Oath Keepers. He says his commitment is “to the Constitution, not a president, or party, or group, or school.”

On Jan. 6, the election results had been certified by all official electors, and the bipartisan legislatures of every state. As is the constitutional process. In following the illegal and un-constitutional instructions from the president to disrupt constitutionally elected officials doing their constitutional duty and any police protecting them, the Oath Keepers’ violent actions showed their allegiance is actually with the former president and his party, not the Constitution. Their actions make them look more like guns for hire, a private army, wrapping themselves in the flag for cover.

The first words of the Second Amendment of the Constitution are “A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State.” If the Oath Keepers truly had a respect for the Constitution, they would submit to regulation by the state, and only protect the state from federal attack, not go to Washington, D.C., to attack the federal government. What else in the Constitution are they selectively reading to justify their violence?

Eastman said “America needs men and women of courage who will stand by the Constitution even, and especially, when they will be pilloried for doing so.” True, but anyone who tries to subvert the Constitution by breaking into a federal building to try and stop Congress from carrying out its constitutional duty, ransacking and threatening lives, but still claiming to stand by the Constitution, deserves to be pilloried.

So where does Eastman stand? Is he a representative of the people working to improve government and make people’s lives better, or is he really a government insider working with armed domestic terror groups to disrupt our government from within? I can understand why Eastman stopped answering questions.

— Paul Brickey

Anchorage

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