Dear editor,

I just received a letter from Wisconsin’s Governor Evers and Lieutenant Governor Barnes, which gave me great concern.

To quote from this letter:

1. “On March 24, I issued Emergency Order 12…which requires Wisconsin residents to stay home and businesses to temporarily close unless they’ve been deemed essential.” There is a great deal of difference between encouraging people, who are given the facts regarding their welfare, to stay home and requiring them to do so. Do you detect a serious loss of freedom? Besides that, who has the authority to deem businesses essential or nonessential basically depriving certain people of their livelihood while promoting the welfare of others? Are government workers deemed essential or nonessential?
2. Governor Evers wrote: “According to a Department of Health Services (DHS) model, Safer at Home has saved at least 300 and possibly as many as 1400 lives….That’s why, at the direction of the governor, DHS Secretary-designee Andrea Palm extended the Safer at Home Order to May 26, 2020.” Have you noticed how often these models have been changed? They seem as good as a crystal ball, and our governor is using these projections to shut down our economy. Notice also that Ms. Palm is the DHS Secretary-designee. She has yet to be confirmed by the State Senate. By what authority is she then shutting down our state for yet another month?
3. When your lives are financially falling apart, where should you turn for help? Governor Evers also included information for you to connect with the government entities to provide for you whether you are an individual turning to unemployment insurance or the expanded Pandemic Unemployment Assistance or if your business is struggling and you turn to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. Our governing bodies claim they will provide while you watch all that you have worked for go down the tubes.These are the same people creating our economic woes.
4. This is the scariest sentence of all: “If you have reason to believe that a business or other entity is violating the Safer at Home Order, please contact your local law enforcement’s non emergency line or online contact, or your local public health department.” Let that one sink in. Are these not the tactics of a totalitarian government?

Elections do have consequences, and we are certainly reaping what was sown in our last election. How quickly we are losing what our forefathers fought to give us. Maybe it is time that we all restudy our Wisconsin Constitution and then get to work electing leaders who will follow it. Just start with this:

Wisconsin Constitution, Article I

Right to assemble and petition.  Section 4. The right of the people peaceably to assemble, to consult for the common good, and to petition the government, or any department thereof, shall never be abridged.

Freedom of worship; liberty of conscience; state religion; public funds.  Section 18.  The right of every person to worship Almighty God according to the dictates of conscience shall never be infringed…nor shall any control of, or interference with, the rights of conscience be permitted….

Or, maybe we should be reading up on Article XIII, Recall of elective officers. Section 12.

Sandra Luedeke

Greenwood