{"id":169458,"date":"2026-02-08T17:23:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/169458\/"},"modified":"2026-02-08T17:23:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-08T17:23:07","slug":"jefferson-was-right-liberty-is-safest-in-the-hands-of-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/169458\/","title":{"rendered":"Jefferson was right. Liberty is safest in the hands of the people"},"content":{"rendered":"

Feb. 8, 2026 7 AM PT <\/p>\n

To the editor: It was inspiring, if not edifying, to read about our students from so many high schools protesting against the nationwide immigration raids (\u201c\u2018We want a change to happen.\u2019 L.A. County students walk out over ICE raids,\u201d<\/a> Jan. 30). Furthermore, it was also encouraging to read that American-born Pope Leo XIV was setting a strong and courageous exhortation to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops by \u201cforcefully\u201d condemning Washington\u2019s \u201caggressive tactics\u201d (\u201cL.A. archbishop holds \u2018Mass for Peace\u2019 as students protest Trump immigration policies,\u201d<\/a> Feb. 4). Yes, now is the time for all good citizens to show up and speak up for \u201cLife, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness\u201d for all.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the salient words of Thomas Jefferson in his letter<\/a> to George Washington on Jan. 4, 1786, capture my sentiments: \u201cIt is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tom Kaminski, Manhattan Beach<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 8, 2026 7 AM PT To the editor: It was inspiring, if not edifying, to read about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[2072,24710,7217,2220,48,52,51,1838,11139,47,50,49,63,78968,7454,592,2592,81328,4574,81327,558],"class_list":["post-169458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-editor","tag-hand","tag-jan","tag-jefferson","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-letter","tag-liberty","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-los-angeles-times","tag-mass","tag-peace","tag-people","tag-pursuit","tag-salient-word","tag-student","tag-trump-immigration-policy","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=169458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=169458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=169458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=169458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}