To the editor:

Americans are taught the idea of rebellion. The idea that when confronted with oppression, there is the right to counter the oppressor. It is not only a right but a duty.

It seems the freedom of confrontation has put us, American citizens, in each others’ crosshairs, the battle of ideologies. What if you fervently believe in an idea with all your heart and good intent, so much that disbelief is heresy, to the extreme of the Inquisition?

That’s where belief and democracy converge.

Are you willing to kill those with different beliefs? Are you willing to torture another human being in order to perpetuate your own true and only belief? Are you willing to even concede that there is a right to disagree?

I have lived and worked on Boston’s North Shore my whole life. I have never met or worked with anyone in Lynn or within a radius from Salem to Chelsea who would ever think that way. Ever!

Maybe dislikes, disagreements, you know – human.

But to kill?

My opinion: That’s what the few who vie for the throne want from those for whom they cast their nets. The people I know aren’t there and never will be.

Just my opinion.

Elizabeth Kurtz

Lynn