I came across this interesting open letter to President-Elect Obama and you know me...I can't just let some things go sometimes...so...I am including both the letter and my thoughts. My thoughts - are in italics....
To President-Elect Barack Obama
Dear Sir,
Congratulations on your election as our 44th President.
I will be up front by saying that I did not vote for you. Bearing that in mind, I will not turn this into some ill conceived mantra about parties or experience. At this point, that is a moot discussion. You have won the election, so it is time to look forward.
While you profess to look forward you are holding a man accountable for the things that have happened in the past. He isn't even "officially" in the office yet and you hold him to a standard that you've let your candidate for the last 8 years skate by with.
I am writing, because I think that government officials are there to serve the people they govern, not the other way around. I believe that I have a right for my voice to be heard; my concerns addressed. I believe I have the right to speak, man to man, to my president.
You speak of civil liberties and rights yet your party doesn't want to let me as a woman control my own body. I believe I have a right woman to man to tell men to back up off me and let me do what I want with my body. I believe government officials are there to serve the people they govern and it is unfortunate that your party has wrapped itself in a shroud of a mythical being and they serve him before they serve our country. They wrap themselves in the flag and the bible and call it governing for the people, yet it isn't their job to decide my morals and ethics.
I am no 'Joe the Plumber.' I am 47, live in the Midwest and manage my family's business. I am an average citizen. I have traditionally voted with a conservative republican slant. I have to say, at this point, I feel betrayed by both parties. To the point that I am giving up my party affiliations and am becoming a declared Independent.
This letter is about as independent as I am virginous. And "Joe the Plumber" isn't even "Joe the Plumber".
President-Elect Obama, I am also a parent. I have a 19 year old son that will be graduating from recruit training at Fort Sill, Oklahoma this weekend. My son will be spending three years serving in an army that will look to you for leadership. I would ask that you always remember that the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines under your command are not just id numbers or numbers to be used to fill force readiness reports. They are husbands, wives, sons, daughters, mothers and fathers. They are all volunteers. Use those men and women to safeguard our national good. Please do not waste their lives. I am putting my son's life in your hands. I expect you to give him back. If fate determines that you cannot, search your soul and make sure that he and his brothers and sisters have not died in vain.
As a veteran of Reagan's military, I understand that conflicts happen. They happen and sometimes, you just can't walk away from them. Fight those conflicts. Fight them intelligently and well. Then bring my son home to me.
I commend the service that you and your family have given to our country - I too come from a family who served in the armed forces. It is unfortunate you and your fellow conservative Republicans didn't feel the need to ask for these men and women not to be id numbers in a war that was fought simply over a disdain for a man and his hatred of our current presidents father. While I agree both parties are to blame, it is the current commander in chief that has us fighting on two fronts and has alienated our long time allies in the process. President-Elect Obama has already committed to reaching out to even our foes and trying to find diplomatic resolutions and stopping the shed of American blood on foreign shores.
As I said earlier, I manage my family's business. A small family run grocery store that serves a community of less than 1500 people. Over the past few months, I have listened to captains of industry come and beg for money, because it's "Just too expensive to do business in this economic climate." It strikes me that there has been a vast amount of fiscal irresponsibility and downright greed. I have heard automakers complain they can't do business. It has been a hallmark of American business to be flexible and responsive to the economic climate and the wants of it's customers. The automakers have seen and chosen to ignore new technology that would have made them far more competitive, yet instead, they flooded the market with vehicles that people increasingly didn't want. Now they want American tax dollars to bail them out. I ask you, Sir, would the government be willing to bail out my grocery store? No, and they would be correct not to do so, because it is my job to make good decisions for my business. Are we any more correct to do so for bigger businesses because they employ more people? They are still called to make the same kinds of choices that I am. They still need to be good businessmen. You, as our President, must ask yourself "Are we rewarding bad choices? Greedy behavior?" So I ask you, Sir, think hard before putting my tax dollars to such use. Once done, it sets a precedence that can't be undone.
Again, it is your lame duck president who is bailing out big business. President-Elect Obama has little to do with what is going on currently and has even issued a challenge to America's automakers and making their receipt of funds dependent on them changing their business practice. I agree that more needs to happen for middle America, for Mom and Pop Mainstreet and that is what President-Elect Obama ran his campaign on and yet you chose to vote for a man who wanted to give larger tax breaks to the companies you want us to think twice before bailing out. That smacks of a double standard by which you hold these candidates to.
Finally, President-Elect Obama, I would ask you to consider the repercussions to our country before speaking for amnesty for illegal immigrants. I keep hearing that unemployment could rise to 8%. How can amnesty help that number? President Bush has said that there are some jobs Americans just will not do. If that is the case, we should be ashamed of ourselves. If such work needs to be done cheaply, wouldn't it be more reasonable to use prison inmates for things like agricultural fieldwork? As most of the illegal immigrants are Mexican, is it not the responsibility of the Mexican government to improve conditions for their own people and not leave it to America? What would the world say if we were to engage in that kind of behavior?
There is also a need to control our boarders to keep out those that would try to use the US/Mexican boarder as an avenue to enter the United States and do us ill. 9/11 was a wake up call for the United States, but it is a call that we have forgotten. Please, Sir, keep my countrymen safe.
We have multiple borders - not just the Mexican border that needs safeguarding. Yet, your lame duck president wants to build a fence to keep illegals out?!? While I question the amnesty thing - I also realize it would take billions of dollars to round up all the illegals that are here and return them to their homeland. What happened to send us your hungry and poor? We have always been a country of immigrants and perhaps we need to go back to that policy instead of being controlled by fear. It is time to start a new and find new ways to deal with our problems instead of throwing millions to a fence that will be as useless as the Berlin Wall in the late years. You are all about Reagan and his policies and wasn't he the man who challenged Russia to tear down the wall? We can't become a country of isolationism. I agree that we need to find new ways to reduce our unemployment. I also agree we should use inmates and even welfare recipients - turn the system into workfare instead to do those jobs that "most Americans just won't do".
Sir, as I've said, I did not vote for you, and I see dark times ahead for our country. Man to man, I ask you to consider carefully your actions over the next four years. I didn't like a lot of the things you had to say over the course of the campaign. Please, Sir, prove me wrong.
While I commend you issuing this challenge to MY president, I regret that you didn't hold your president as accountable and perhaps we wouldn't be in the financial crisis we are currently in. Perhaps we wouldn't have alienated so many of our allies along the way when we were trying to "liberate" Iraq. Perhaps North Korea would still be willing to discuss the nukes they have. Perhaps we would still be operating in a budget surplus instead of a defecit that our children will be paying off for years. I commend you for finally stepping up and holding someone accountable, I fear it is just too late.
Perhaps instead of being so adversarial to our new President-Elect, you should consider being more supportive and instead of issuing a challenge asking him to prove you wrong, you should be more supportive and work harder to take ownership in your community to prove him right - that we can still be a country built of the people, by the people and for the people - so while you challenge president-elect Obama, I challenge you.
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