To the editor:
I read the letter to the editor in your April 30 edition (“Officials must adhere to the Constitution,” by Charles Alexyon) with keen interest. It was written by a fine alumnus of E.P. High. While I admire his enthusiasm, I must totally disagree with his main point.
As a (retired) Civics and History teacher at E.P. I always discussed the Constitution in great detail. I stressed that nowhere in the Bill of Rights were those rights absolute! Does the free of speech give the liberty to yell fire in a crowded auditorium? Does the right to bear arms give a person the freedom to bring an assault weapon in the chamber of a state legislature?
As is so plainly written in the Preamble of the Constitution, the purpose of our government is to “promote the general welfare.”
The greatest danger to the Constitution, as I see it, is a president who declares he has “absolute authority.” The first three Articles of that document established the basic principle of “separation of powers.” Those basic tenets were written well before the passage of our cherished Bill of Rights
Bob Fontes
East Providence

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