In Your Opinion: We All Have The Right To Criticize Government Without Retribution
By Rev. and Mrs. Kashinsky.
On the morning of September 7, the party of tolerance and joy revealed their violent hypocrisy in Franklin. A peaceful and loving individual was so triggered by speech they disagreed with that they committed a crime of vandalism and violence in setting fire to private property. We are so thankful to the kind gentleman driving past who rang our doorbell to let us know what was happening before it was too late. An electrical power source inches away from the sign could have started an electrical fire that burned down our home while we were inside asleep with our four pets.
While the fire was burning, one of our elected Democrat representatives was interviewed in front of our house laughing, smirking, and attacking the victims of this crime before completely baselessly and slanderously accusing us of setting the fire to our own lawn. Curiously, Assemblyman and Democrat operative Joe Danielsen was on scene immediately, and was himself the one who reported the fire to the newspaper. In the video he took, posted by the Franklin Reporter & Advocate, he can be heard giggling as he shows our property burning. When interviewed by the Reporter, he is seen smirking and decrying the sign as “ugly” and “hateful” over 10 times and offering no comment on the crime committed until the reporter feels obligated to clarify that the newspaper does not condone arson. Danielsen then suggests that we had the audacity to put our own lives and neighbors’ lives at risk by setting fire to our property.
While Danielsen was loitering around our home gleefully laughing and taking pictures and reveling in media attention, at no point did he inquire as to the safety of the homeowners. This suspicious behavior begs the question: perhaps a person this visibly giddy about the criminal destruction of another’s property and this close to the scene when it was committed, who is so quick to make such an outrageous false accusation, is himself the one who felt so triggered and entitled into committing this unhinged destruction of another person’s property? At the very least, anyone who condones political violence is unfit to serve in public office. We’ll await his apology, and his resignation.
The right to criticize our government without prosecution is enshrined in our Constitution, and it is what separates us from totalitarian countries who jail political opponents. For over a year, local officials have been trying to silence our freedom of speech, from our Mayor to our town Republican Chairwoman to our Assemblyman. Earlier in the week, protestors trespassed on our property and blocked the road with signs Danielsen called “counter signs of peace and love and dignity.” All of you can spare us your crying and hand-wringing about “peace and love and dignity.” We express our opinions through our words, as patriotic Americans have every right to do. You express yours through violence and destruction, from arson to presidential assassination attempts. Your ideology has no regard for human life that disagrees with you, and that is exactly why you will never silence us.
Editor’s Note: The interview with Assemblyman Danielsen was conducted on a side street, not in front of the Kashinskys’ home.