To the Editor:

The June 12, 2020 [print] edition of The Bee included two letters to the editor written by Messrs Buzzi and Magnan. I encourage your readers to digest fully the messages both letters are delivering. Buzzi’s piece addresses a major problem we are facing as a society in these troubling times while Magnan’s letter addresses a more focused issue of the same umbrella problem. Both gentlemen should be lauded for bringing this creeping loss of our procedural process and our cultural and historic history because of the current “fashionable” desire to tear down what the “mob” does not like or decides is wrong.

Legitimate protests are part of our heritage and also protected under our Constitution. But when the “mob” turns violent and demands that publicly sanctioned symbols of our history and heritage are removed, defaced, and destroyed without public agreement, we are allowing our culture and historical artifacts to be removed because a small minority of unelected persons find them offensive and in their attempt to change history are, as Buzzi writes, “usurping our rights.”

Paul J. Mangiafico

44 Copper Square Drive, Bethel June 22, 2020