Life in a cage

I must strongly disagree with the letter by the fellow from Baileyville (“Shoot to kill,” BDN, Feb. 22) about giving the National Guard “shoot to kill” orders on our borders. I can just see Calais under martial law with a few hundred guardsmen with big, dangerous weapons blowing away anyone they suspect might be an illegal alien. What if it’s just a couple of ladies walking over the bridge to Marden’s and one of the guardsmen gets suspicious and shoots their heads off?

I don’t want America to turn into a police state. If I happen to be out on a friend’s boat, maybe coming back from playing golf in Campobello, I don’t want a bunch of soldiers sitting down at the breakwater here in Eastport with the power of life or death over me. I thought our slogan was “Land of the Free” not “Shoot to Kill.” If we put up a 12-foot-high electric fence along the length of the St. Croix River and manned it with National Guardsmen with shoot-to-kill orders, would we be protecting ourselves as citizens, or putting us all in a cage?

Will Bradbury

Eastport