“Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This famous observation was made by Lord Acton in 1887 about the natural corruption of autocrats.

Like Hitler and Stalin before him, Vladimir Putin has taken a country once rich with a cultural history of composers, authors, painters and scientists and utterly destroyed its reputation in the world by denying its citizens access to free information and by appealing to the very worst in their natures.

We free citizens in a democratic United States would do well to learn this lesson: stay constantly alert to those among us who would gain — or regain — autocratic power by denying the truth and perverting the law.

Dennis Perkins

Winslow