I’ve learned that years will change the way you think and the way you act and will also cause you to listen before you comment on something. I’m 70 years old now, have seen a lot in my lifetime, but I never dreamed that I would ever see the world in the shape it’s in today.

No one dislikes Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama worse than I. With that said, their views and opinion are their rights as are mine, but that does not justify them being put in a life or death position as was the Republican congressmen on this past Wednesday at the ballpark practice.

I truly believe that our First Amendment right should have a limit as to w hat we can and cannot do and say. When people in public can chant and call for our police officers to be killed, our president be assassinated in a play and a picture of his head being held up by a so-called celebrity on national TV, crosses the line. It’s no wonder the crazies are coming out of the woodwork to attempt to take the lives of our politicians and police. This has gotten almost as bad as the threat of Isis since it’s our neighbors, friends and family members who are doing this unthinkable crime.

This did not happen overnight. It started years ago. When prayer was taken out of our schools, the American flag was allowed to be burned in a protest, and the atheists could get benches and statues removed from public places because the word “God” offended them.

I won’t be around many more years, but I have grandchildren and one great-grandchild that will grow up in a world that’s in a death spiral headed straight to hell. Unless something is done and soon, we will be up against things that we won’t be able to control any longer.

Drugs are at an all-time high, as are gangs, until you can’t leave anything in your car or truck parked in your driveway at night, much less leave your door unlocked or a window open in your house.

With all of this crime increasing every year, thank God we have a president that supports our right to own guns. We don’t need them just for hunting any more, but fur us to protect our family, friends and neighbors.

Read the headlines of the major newspapers across this nation. It’s all about how President Trump and Russia has something going on together, anything else is found toward th back of the paper, that’s not important at all. As I said, until our right to free speech is amended and a cap on how far you can go is established, it’s only going to get worse. Until the draft for the military is reinstated, until discipline and order is brought back into our schools and respect for others is taught by the parents at home, our world as we know it will no longer exist. Finally, until our police officer and our politicians are respected for doing a job that the majority of us want no part of, our government will soon collapse. It’s almost like it was during the Vietnam war, the one working with you during the ay was the very one who was trying to kill you at night. You don’t know who you can trust until it’s too late.

If we allow the rhetoric to continue in our papers, on the radio and on TV, it will only get worse.

Think about this, what do we leave our children, grandchildren, and others when we leave the world an d who is going to protect them with us gone?

Russia, Iran, No. Korea, China and other countries are not our biggest problems – We are!

Duane O’Neal

Andalusia