Letters to the Editor Week of 7/20/20

Flawed logic?
To the editor: If you drive a vehicle and don’t use a safety belt you have good chance of getting a ticket.
It makes you wonder why. The best answer I can come up with is it makes money for the city, county or state.
Remember, no part of our government pays for any damage or injuries for us in an accident but the government can fine you for not wearing a safety belt. Should we not have the right to choose.
America needs its citizens to wear face masks during the pandemic or we may all get sick.
But if we don’t comply we don’t get a ticket. How strange is that?
What rights do those of us who wear masks have to maybe save our lives?
All lives matter.
Larry Erard
Walbridge

Ideals for all
To the editor: There exists no police state in the world where police are held accountable. First they aren't held accountable, and everyone except themselves and those who preside over them, are considered criminals, and when they are granted absolute authority to do as they please, justice, liberty, equality and freedom are lost to everyone.
The point is everyone should be held accountable and treated equally under the law regardless of their job, the color of their skin, sexual orientation, religion, country of origin or anything else. When the system allows a police force to act as judge, jury and executioner, the very fabric of our justice system - innocent until proven guilty- is no more.
If we do not fix our system so that we are all held accountable under and within the law, then we will all become victims of an unjust system like so many other places in the world.
There are far more decent and honest police officers than there are bad officers, and the best way to defend them, is for those decent honest officers and we, the people, to insist that the dishonest, bigoted and racist officers be held accountable and removed from service, tried if necessary, sentenced if found guilty. No one can, or should be above the law.
Left unchecked, the flames of injustice will consume our house. We will either wallow in the ashes of that which once set America apart from the rest of the world, or we will act as one to extinguish the flames. Truth, justice, equality and liberty are the ideals and principals for which every human being, especially Americans, should stand and fight for.
Those ideals are for all of us, not some of us.
Jim White
Fremont