To the editor:

With liberty and justice for all — as most of us know, this is the last verse of the Pledge of Allegiance to our American flag.

The rights of some of our hard-working citizens have been flagrantly and maliciously violated. Carpetbaggers was a name given to land-grabbers who swindled people out of their homes, farms and property during and post-Civil War times. In the year of our Lord Jesus 2005 these carpet-bagging practices are still prevalent.

This has already been done in Sunset Hills a few short years ago and presently some residents of Sunset Hills are under fire again with unwanted and unwarranted development.

The Highway 55 and Loughborough area and Herculaneum residents are under fire as well, I might add. Herky residents were told when they bought their dwellings that the old St. Joe lead plant would not be reopened and now they are being put out of their homes unmercifully.

It is also being done in Arnold at High-way 141 and Church Road, even proposing to tear down the Veterans of Foreign Wars post. There is a sinister, evil omnipresence when local government allows this to happen. Eminent domain initially was used for highways, hospitals, railroads and airports — not for commercial development.

Since the Revolutionary War, Americans always have been willing to pay the price of freedom. Just consider the lives lost in the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan and the Native Americans who lost their lives during the ethnic cleansing orchestrated by Andrew Jackson — something in which I have a special interest.

Too many Americans have paid the price of freedom. Many have suffered and persevered defending the ideals of the American flag — truth, justice and liberty for all. I have the same sentiments as Patrick Henry: Give me liberty or give me death; I won’t be persecuted and I will not live as a slave.

Mike “Grassroots” Povich

Green Park