A Friend’s Rant

I get a Christmas note from friends who live near Lake Champlain. Here is an excerpt:
We usually write what a friend calls “our rant” about here, sharing with you a few things that just flat out bother us.
Drones: especially those that kill without legal process, no court, and no facing the accuser. What happened to a fair trial? What precedent are we setting?
Information: we need to know what our elected government is doing in our name and with our money. We don’t need everything to be secret. How can we vote sensibly otherwise?
Hydro-fracking: putting chemicals into the earth to get natural gas out. What are the chemicals? If we are possibly damaging our groundwater and drinking water for ourselves and our children, how can we be so short-sighted?
Global warming: threatens the entire earth’s ecology yet we do next to nothing to curtail our carbon output. A rising tide might raise all boats is an old saying; it also assumes everyone has a boat and seems not to mention island and coastal communities.
Lastly the National Defense Act and the provisions in it signed into being by President Obama: allow the military to arrest any citizen suspected of aiding anyone the government considers an enemy, and holding them indefinitely without trial.
All this to protect our democracy, our constitution and Bill of Rights while militarizing our judicial system.