DEAR EDITOR:

Like his political colleagues, Michael Rulli and Bill Johnson, we have yet another grifter in our Mahoning County backyard. This time the honor goes to Republican State Rep. and party tool, Al Cutrona. In addition to the $20,000 nepotistic contribution to his fiancee’s consulting firm, sleight-of-hand Al is now taking on the mantra of censorship police chief. Bad enough that U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham is the de facto morality police chief. Now, with HB 622, fictitious Al wants to act in loco parentis.

If passed — God forbid — this illaudable piece of concocted legislation will limit state funding to local libraries if they don’t adhere to Republican-led efforts to prohibit displaying matter “harmful to juveniles.”

So, from local discretionary control of subject matter being available at our libraries, a bunch of mostly partisan censors in Columbus will control, monitor and supervise library functioning. Failure to do so by parents and librarians in local state-wide communities to critically surveil book content availability to children and youth, Big Brother will step in to take control of what they deem appropriate and acceptable matter for juvenile perusal.

Together with Rulli and Jerry Cirino’s SB 83, if passed, local supervision of state-run universities and neighborhood libraries will be governed by political enforcers like the morality police in Iran. I mean, that’s where it’s headed; further usurpation of individual rights into the hands of a privileged few who will determine what is to be taught in higher education and allowable to children at their local public library.

Thus, to get state funding, intelligent educators, conscientious parents and librarians will now have to kowtow to the likes of B. Johnson, A. Cutrona and J. Cirino. I mean, above all other they assume to know what’s best for Ohio citizenry, right?

I am so sick and tired of self-righteous politicians who think they can judge what is morally appropriate for our children, adolescents and young adults. Acting in loco parentis, Cutrona’s HB 622 and Cirino / Rulli’s SB 83 will further usurp individual rights. Are we creeping to another state-run totalitarian government, one the likes of that in Iran, a political regime based on subordination of the individual to a power-hungry autocracy? Yes, via Republican hegemony. Be wary, my brothers and sisters, democracy is a fragile gift.

“The money power preys on the nation in times of peace and conspires against it in times of adversity. It is more despotic than monarchy, more insolent than autocracy, more selfish than bureaucracy. It denounces as public enemies, all who question its methods or thrown light upon its crimes.” — Abraham Lincoln

TERRY CROGAN

Boardman