Editor, Gazette-Journal:

First Thanksgiving, then Christmas—real blessings. While listening to the soundtrack from The Patriot, I remembered the thoughts, the passion to be free, that were in the hearts of the men and women who had the courage to risk their lives and all material things to be free, to be, American.

Today, the people of Egypt are facing the complete loss of any personal freedoms due to the election of their president. As soon as this man took office, he began his goal of controlling all of Egypt, making decrees that gave him powers that were not legal before. Kings and dictators make decrees, but once their president forced his first changes on the people he then used these decrees, which he made, as an excuse or reason for further changes, including their constitution!

Now, he is forcing Sharia law as part of it, using words that enable him to punish citizens for almost anything they do that he disagrees with. In addition, he is ignoring their Supreme Court, thereby removing any hope for the people to achieve justice. When this president was running for election, he made statements that gave hope for providing stability and peace to their situation; but instead, he has made it even worse and is turning what had been a form of democratic government into a dictatorship.

What is happening there should be a warning to all who treasure the freedoms Americans have. The men who formed our Constitution warned future citizens that they would need to stand up and fight to keep the liberties we now have, as written in our Declaration of Independence. I hope more of America will remember just how blessed we are to "be" American and to not allow any entity to remove those liberties. God bless America and all who love her.

Dawn Dale

Hayes, Va.