To the Editor:
In the 1950s, I watched Senator McCarthy on our black and white Philco round-screened television and learned to chant, “I’d rather be dead than red.” Americans were indoctrinated by propaganda that, although childish by today’s standards, moved us to build shelters and hide under school desks from the nuclear bombs that were to rain down upon us at any moment. We lost our way, but we were not in danger of losing our nation.
The paranoia of the past holds little weight when measured against the psychosis of today. We trust the untrustworthy; preposterous distortions become “alternative truths.” A lie is no longer a lie if it suits our purpose. In Louisiana, the Ten Commandments is renamed a historical document rather than the religious tenet it is. With Machiavellian psyche, those who skirt the Constitution do so by violating the very Commandments they purport to uphold so dearly. Perhaps it would make more sense if, rather than fill the walls with words, we simply live by them.
SUSAN DUHON
Many, Louisiana
