All through my school years, I was taught about the great freedoms we have in this great country of ours.

In the past 40 years, I have seen these freedoms being taken away little by little. First came our First Amendment right to pray when and where we wanted. The First Amendment does not say, freedom from religion, it says freedom of religion.

In reading what the Founding Fathers had to say about this, it would seem to me it means, the right to pray to whomever we wanted, where and whenever we wanted, without fear of persecution from anyone.

Now we are told that because of the separation of church and state, this is no longer true. Freedom of speech has been trampled on. The right for a group that I belong to, to say who I support by belonging to said group is now illegal.

Now these people are after my Second Amendment rights. I never owned a weapon until the government decided to try to take that right away from me, now I find that I have to, in order to protect myself and my family.

The mayor in New York wanted to try to tell people even what they could eat and drink and how much. Do we need a government to protect us from ourselves? I think I am old enough to make these decisions for myself.

How many more of our freedoms are we as a nation willing to give up? When will we as a country say enough? I have certainly had enough.

Gary Kitchen

Oakland