Wednesday, January 25, 2006

The Honorable Harry Reid
United States Senate- Minority Leader
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510-2803

Dear Senator Reid:

I write to you as not a constituent, but an American. A patriotic American that believes invariably every American has the ordained and unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I also believe our nation is in peril and that the very doctrines and laws that guarantee these unequivocal rights of all human beings is in grave danger.

For five years I have watched President Bush and the republican controlled Congress mount a campaign of distortion, lies and conservative ideologies to usurp these rights from average Americans. I have tabulated the seriousness of these egregious, sanctimonious actions of deceit- and the cost is high. The despair I feel as an American who knows all too well, what history has conclusively shown, that any civilization that allows any branch or branches of its government to become the lone voice, not only fails its people but soon falls into ruin and extinction.

The erosion of the foundation of our democracy has been systematically chipped away to the point we now precariously teeter as a nation. The checks and balances that are designed to prevent our fall into the abyss of one-party rule and autocracy is one blow away from collapse and that fateful plummet.

That very foundation, carefully constructed over 219 years ago, using three separate, but equal branches of government, to ensure the individual rights of every ordinary American citizen, has reached a dangerous and threatening crisis. A crisis so severe that if the men and women charged with the stewardship of maintaining this equilibrium fail, America as a nation will fail.

We have already witnessed, in total dismay and in grisly detail, the corruption and greed that has entered our Congress and twisted an entire political party into one that is devoid of morality or compassion, conscience or justice and having been sold to the highest bidder.

Today, our nation is being asked to allow Samuel Alito to sit on the bench of our nation’s highest court. As you know, the Senate confirmation hearings provided very little details about Mr. Alito other than his evasive questioning expertise and ability to forget critical points in his life when convenient to dodge the real truths behind his agenda.

Mr. Alito can only be described as an extreme ideologue, steeped in right-winged zealousness and tainted by fanatically false self-righteousness. His prior judicial record patently shows Mr. Alito is clearly a longtime champion of extending near omnipotent power to the executive and authoritative branches of government and rarely favors individual freedoms and rights.

The phrase, “All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing” could not more aptly apply to the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Now is not the time for moral victories. A simple vote of NO by forty-four Senators is still a YES for Mr. Alito and an open invitation to extend plenary powers to the President and to rescind all civil liberties to the common man.

Senator Reid, as the Senate Minority leader, as a man who has witnessed and taken on severe corruption first hand, you have the tools to arrest our fall into a one-party rule that favors big government and big corporations. The challenge that lies in front of you, for the sake of all Americans, is to rise up, denounce the nomination of Samuel Alito and to vigorously defend the Constitution.

On behalf of all conscience Americans, you MUST filibuster Samuel Alito! Any democratic Senator that is wary of this necessary method to salvage our rights and to stop the march of the republicans must be convinced that a filibuster is the only message to send President Bush. A message that will speak loud and clear that our democracy is not for sale, our rights must be preserved and that the intrusion of government into our private lives must and will cease!

Send Alito away and insist that President Bush appoint a centrist and a moderate. A voice of and for the people, a nominee that will unwaveringly defend the Constitution, refuses to bring an agenda to the high court and passionately believes without a shred of doubt that no one can deny you life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness without proper due process!

-Frank Ranelli