Letter to the editor: Government overreach causing societal turmoil

Those attending the Oct. 19 Greater Latrobe School Board meeting were advised that members of the board have been threatened with criminal prosecution if they had failed to enforce Acting Health Secretary Alison Beam’s current mask order.

The threatening of licensing that otherwise has nothing to do with the matter at hand and the overreach of regulatory agencies to gain compliance with the Wolf administration’s pandemic policy is nothing new. We also saw a similar tactic last year under Dr. Rachel Levine, the previous health secretary, when department store managers and gas station clerks were summarily conscripted into the ranks of state law enforcement agents to enforce the mask order.

The mask order then and the mask order now are not the point. How does Gov. Tom Wolf or anyone else not expect that the turning of citizen on citizen in this way will result in turmoil? Some may argue that the danger of a pandemic necessitates this level of societal upheaval. I disagree.

Our politicians speak gleefully of various and plentiful levers of government that they may pull to force our compliance with policies with which many disagree. Is this the way our government is supposed to work?

I would ask you to consider whether the authority that you have granted to our government is being used by the government in the way(s) designed, intended and given.

Matt Pergar

Unity