Editor,

This is in response to a letter to the editor from Ed Hickey, “Hillary Clinton could upend amendment rights,” in the July 4 edition of The Record. Mr. Hickey claims that if the country were left in Hillary Clinton’s hands she would “attack the first and second amendments” by filling the Supreme Court with judges who have leftist agendas. Such warnings and tactics are pumped out regularly by the far right’s propaganda machine and they’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember. It is as though they feel they are the only ones entrusted with the true meaning of our nation’s sacred document and the rest of us are dupes wander around in a dark and traitorous forest.

The Constitution and the framers’ intentions have been open to interpretation for centuries and will continue to be. What would these so-called Constitutional purists wish? Do they believe we should have left slavery enshrined on its pages or that we not be able to vote directly for our senators?

If Mr. Hickey and others are so concerned about upholding the Constitution, as they see it, why look at Democrats as their enemies? Remember that it was a Republican, Eisenhower, who appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren (Brown vs. Board of Education, Miranda vs. Arizona) and it was a Republican, George W. Bush, who appointed Chief Justice John Roberts (the Affordable Care Act). And don’t forget that it is a Republican Donald Trump who is waging a hard attack on the First Amendment by suggesting we “open up our libel laws” to make it easier to sue reporters and “win lots of money.”

BRIAN PELTON

Langley