Editor,

My dear Whidbey neighbors, something big happened in our country on Jan. 6.

Our political disagreements became a threat to our nation.

It rattled me, to say it mildly. How about you?

The miracle of the United States is our ability to solve our differences through laws rather than guns and through voting rather than violence.

We may fear a world run by people who don’t agree with us, but we stay in the game together, one Nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.

We’re learning that this isn’t easy.

Are we “one Whidbey” as well? Our political disagreements with our fellow citizens may be infuriating, we may bend the law, but we don’t break them. Please assure me this is still true.

None of our teachers, law officers, shopkeepers, doctors and nurses, pastors, farmers, builders and mechanics wear their politics on their sleeves; we don’t know how the person running the cash register voted but that doesn’t matter.

We buy our groceries and go home.

That’s part of what keeps Whidbey a great and safe place to live.

I pray this won’t happen here, that one part of our community doesn’t turn on the other part.

I pray that our elected and appointed and professional county leaders will follow our laws and treat everyone equally before the law.

I pray no one here decides to take the law into their own hands and that we will never see on Whidbey what we saw in the nation’s capital.

Democracy is precious and fragile. I love this place. You do too.

Don’t let the hate rising in the nation infect our community.

This isn’t kumbaya. This is the rule of law.

Vicki Robin

Langley