This is from a poster at Free Republic. I cannot vouch for its authenticity, but it is a good read.
Here is a letter that a friend wrote to his children. He shared it
with me and gave me his permission to post it. He also gives permission
for any and all to use it.
Dear Heath, Laura, Shania and Zack,
Please
forgive the formality of me writing a letter to my children, but my
brain is so full of information and things I want to say that it is
about to explode and I fear that if I don’t do something like this to
organize, then edit and refine my thoughts, I will lose some important
facts of the message. Even in this format I feel like I am rambling.
I
have known for a while now that I needed to write this, but when it
comes right down to it, it is hard to know where or how to begin. So I
will just jump in with both feet and state it bluntly. Then, I will take
some time to dissect my motivation which is as usual based on logic and
common sense – the same logic and common sense that I try to apply to
all the problems I encounter.
Anyway, after a lot of studying,
reflection, praying, and an enormous amount of careful consideration I
have decided that I cannot support President Obama’s re-election bid and
will therefore be voting for Romney. Not that I am all that thrilled
with Romney – he surely is having problems explaining his program
adequately, but I don’t have the words to describe my disappointment in
Obama’s performance and my sincere fear, even dread, for the survival of
our country and life as we know it if Obama is re-elected.
I am
providing this as food for thought. I hope you all invest sufficient
time and effort to study and analyze the facts, look deep into your
souls, and draw your own conclusions. If, after doing that, you are
still loyal to Mr. Obama, then go vote your conscience and know that you
have my blessing. After all, this is still The United States of
America.
As for the reasons behind my decision, let’s start with a
little background. As you know Nana and Pop-pop are lifelong Democratic
liberals. So I was brought up in that environment. I never questioned
it. I blindly accepted it as “The Way” and so when I reached voting age I
dutifully enrolled as a Democrat. And for 35 years or so I subscribed
to the Democratic ideals, always voted for Democratic Presidential
candidates, and usually voted the straight Democratic ticket. But
somewhere along the line things have changed. I’m not sure if it is I
that changed or if it was the world that changed. To be sure in those
early years I was naïve, ignorant, and just plain apathetic about the
facts. But I also think the Democratic / liberal message was different
back then. What I once accepted as compassion for my fellow man embodied
by liberal ideals has somehow morphed into a monstrous entitlement
philosophy. I no longer believe the Democratic message is compassionate
at all, instead it is cynical and cruelly hypocritical. Although many of
the rank and file Democrats still hold that compassion in their hearts
as they blindly follow the party, the leaders of the liberal movement
are only interested in trapping as many people as possible in a welfare /
entitlement state of existence so they can exploit them politically for
eternity. And on the opposite end of the liberal movement are those
very entitlement beneficiaries, the people with their hands out all the
time expecting a free ride from the government (exactly those that
Romney said he could never reach). I’m convinced that if you want to see
true compassion, you need to look to conservatives who are all about
empowering each individual to reach his / her full potential and
minimizing the obstacles to doing so. But of course that means that you
need to eliminate the most of the freebies. But, I’m getting ahead of
myself. Suffice it to say for now that I became a Democrat by default
and not through any real conscious decision.
I married your Mom,
also a Democratic liberal, so naturally it follows that all of you were
raised in a Democratic liberal household. But, rather than spend the
next 35 years blindly pulling that Democratic lever in the polling
booth, as I did, I am asking each of you now to carefully analyze
everything and then to make an informed decision about your future
philosophy. Are you a Democratic liberal by default or by conviction?
Anyway
I promised you common sense analysis of my decision so here we go. I
find myself on the “other side” of just about every action that Mr.
Obama has taken. So numerous are my disagreements and disappointments in
Mr. Obama’s policies that it is impossible for me to deal with all of
them here. So I will concentrate on just a few of the larger issues.
These issues are all interconnected, and in analyzing the issues
individually and with their connections, I believe that any common sense
individual will see things as I do. You can go through the exercise of
extrapolating to the other less significant issues if you’re interested.
1. Small Ball: Mr. Obama is basing his campaign on “small ball”.
He focuses on less than serious issues and with superb oratory flair
combined with a big dose of lies and half-truths he elevates those
issues to extract maximum press coverage and / or damage to the Romney
campaign. It certainly helps that 90% of the press is more than happy to
carry water for the President. It is unfortunate that the combined
efforts of Mr. Obama and the press often sidetrack Romney from his
message. In that I am disappointed in both candidates. They are playing
tiddley winks while the whole world literally hangs in the balance of
the larger issues that are being ignored. The talking points that are
being discussed in this campaign are BS compared to what really matters.
2. Foreign Policy: Although Mr. Obama made a good and gutsy
decision to eliminate Bin Laden and other terrorist leaders, his overall
performance with respect to Foreign Policy sucks, especially as it
concerns the Mideast and the Islamist terrorists. He is selling out our
ally, Israel, and he is advancing an atmosphere that emboldens the
Islamist extremists. He stands on the sidelines, never lifting a finger
to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. He is content to support
reform across the entire Moslem world and, again, stands by as a
spectator as that region moves ever closer to a vast extremist dominated
Moslem empire stretching across northern Africa all the way to China.
This will be an empire that hates our guts and attempts to do everything
imaginable to annihilate our nation. That they will have access to
nuclear weapons and be in control of a good bit of the world’s energy
production is even more disturbing.
Further, if you examine one
of Obama’s small ball issues, the “War on Women”, just think what it
would be like being a woman in such an extremist Islamist dominated
society. If we’re not careful, those same extremists will also dominate
America and then you will really have a “War on Women”.
Nor do I
want my as yet unborn grandchildren to have to sacrifice their lives to
fight again for American freedom or to have to live as slaves in such an
extremist society.
3. Economy / National Debt. For Obama’s
entire term in office, our economy has been in a recession. Sure they
have technical metrics that indicate a recovery is in progress, but a
look around at the plight of real people proves that we are still in the
throes of a deep recession. Our national debt is an unmanageable $16
TRILLION of which he is responsible for a third. I am concerned again
for you all and my unborn grandchildren that your generations will never
be able to repay all this debt and will therefore live in servitude to
your new masters. Equally concerning about the unmanageable debt is the
fact that without a vibrant economy we will not have the funds to
support our own defense. So while we allow enemy factions to gather
strength, we are simultaneously weakening our own position on every
front.
Unemployment is also connected to the economy, but I will discuss that as its own topic.
One
of Obama’s economic goals is redistribution of wealth. Essentially what
this means is you take money away from the wealthy (aka the successful)
and distribute it among the less “fortunate” masses. On the surface it
sounds like a noble and reasonable plan. As Mr. Obama says, “Everyone
has a shot”. But there are several things wrong with this thinking:
First of all, it is one of the precepts of communism “from each
according to their ability, to each according to their need”. Second, it
thwarts any incentive that people would have to improve their
situation. If they need to do nothing to exist, nothing is what they
will do and the country and the world would be deprived of whatever good
one of these “unfortunates” might contribute to the world. Third, the
so called “wealthy” do not have enough wealth to support this scheme.
Forget about taxing them. Confiscate every penny they have and you still
will not have enough to pay off the national debt and support the
masses. Fourth, the “wealthy, successful” people who are supposed to
support the rest of us will also lose their incentive. Why should they
continue to push themselves to achieve new goals, create new products,
make more money if everything they work for is subject to confiscation
by the Government on behalf of the less fortunate. So this will compel
the creation of a mediocre performing nation unequipped and unable to
compete in the global market. Fifth, these “wealthy” individuals did not
become wealthy by being stupid. If the Government’s plan is to
confiscate their wealth and distribute it to the lazy, then surely these
people will find ways to hide their wealth, or move it beyond the reach
of the Government.
Let me share a quick anecdote that analogizes
the “Redistribution” problem in more relatable terms. I know this will
ring true for each of you because you have all been excellent and
overachieving students. Suppose you walked into a college-level class
being taught by Professor Obama. Now further suppose that Professor
Obama taught a very demanding class. The reading load was substantial.
The tests were very difficult. There were several challenging projects.
But in the spirit of the diligent students that you all are, you each
earned an A in the class. Now, let’s suppose that there were 2 other
types of student groups in the class. One of these groups put in just
enough effort to pass, but not enough to excel. They all earned C’s or
D’s. And now let’s suppose that the last group of students did nothing.
They rarely attended class. They failed all the tests. They did not do
the projects. On the last day of class, Professor Obama passionately
explains that he realizes that adequate performance in this class is a
pre-requisite to advancing in the college. So, to ensure that all of his
students get a “Fair Shot” he is giving everybody a C. So he has
redistributed the “wealth” that you earned and bestowed it on those that
do not deserve it. He is pitting the efforts of one group against the
others. How would you feel about all the effort you put forth to earn
your C?
One final point before I leave the economy topic. It
seems that if we continue down the road we are on, then the dollar will
fail. I’m afraid we are already much closer to this than we realize. In
fact, some experts have studied Obama’s economic strategy objectively
and stated that it almost seems that collapse of the dollar and hence
the economy is his objective. I am not a world economist, but a failure
of the dollar would be a crisis on an unimaginable scale.
4.
Unemployment continues to hover above 8%. But, again that number is
“small ball”. It is BS. That 8% does not include those that are no
longer looking for work. It does not include those that have found
menial employment far below their capabilities. If you were to include
those folks, you would see that the unemployment number is closer to
20%. The way that I see it, the best thing, really the ONLY thing that
will pull this country out of the crash landing that seems inevitable is
more jobs, better jobs. But there can be no more and better jobs
without a vibrant economy. We need wealthy, successful, motivated people
who are willing to take a chance to get wealthier and more successful
and are willing to create jobs and opportunities for the rest of us as
they do. But the Obama Administration seems hell bent on preventing any
meaningful job growth. They are content to allow the population to “flip
burgers” when there is real work to be done. The amount of rules and
regulations required of businesses to hire and maintain employees is
overwhelming. Likewise, the rules and regulations on the operational
aspects of businesses is also overwhelming. It’s no wonder that many
would be business owners just give up.
And then there’s
Obamacare. Not only will this monstrosity guarantee that unemployment
will remain high because businesses cannot afford the overhead, but it
will also further devastate the economy with new taxes and fees on
everyone. But even with all the new taxes bringing in revenue, Obamacare
will add TRILLIONS more to our national debt. And guess what… Obamacare
really has little to do with Healthcare Reform, but much to do with
1984-like monitoring and control.
5. Next let’s look at Obama’s
Energy Policy, or lack thereof. He has it in his mind that we can
achieve energy independence with “Green Technologies”. The only problem
is that Green Technologies are nowhere close to being able to deliver
the energy we need to run the country. I sincerely doubt that they will
ever provide even half of our energy requirements, but they are decades
away from that. But Obama has already squandered another trillion or so
of taxpayers dollars in foolish investments in companies that have gone
bankrupt, thereby wasting those dollars. Meanwhile, fossil fuel
technology has developed to a point where our country has enough proven
reserves and the means to access those reserves to last for centuries.
But Obama refuses to allow exploitation of these reserves. Meanwhile, at
the same time, he is subsidizing, with US Dollars, oil exploration off
the coasts of Venezuela and Brazil. These countries are happy to take
our money, pump the oil, and then sell the oil back to us at enormous
profits. Something is wrong with that logic, especially when we could be
producing our own energy. And given the instability in the Arab world,
it is only a matter of time before the next crisis cuts off our oil
supply. We need energy independence ASAP for geo-political reasons. We
need to be able to meet our own energy demands domestically. We should
also position ourselves to be able to export our excess production to
other countries. Nevertheless, fossil fuels are a finite resource. So we
need an energy policy that moves forward on and takes advantage of all
of the energy technologies. Unfortunately our history has always been to
use what is cheapest and most readily available. That is not a long
term strategy for survival. We do need to develop the alternative energy
sources to make our fossil fuel reserves last longer and to be ready to
take on an increasing percentage of the country’s energy requirements
when the reserves do start to dwindle. In other words, our Energy Policy
needs to be an “all of the above” strategy. Now Mr. President says that
he supports an “all of the above” Energy Policy, but that again is BS.
If his strategy is “all of the above”…Why are we no longer drilling
offshore? Why are we not drilling for oil in all the areas where there
are proven reserves? Why are we not building pipelines and refineries?
Why is he putting restrictions on coal? Why has it been over 30 years
since we have built a new nuclear power plant in this country?
In
addition to dramatically increasing our national security, becoming
self sufficient in energy will also directly create jobs, millions of
them. And if we can power our industrial engine with less expensive and
more stable, reliable energy, this will indirectly create millions of
more jobs. All these workers will be paying taxes and it is those taxes
that will start to pull America’s economy out of the gutter.
OK,
so the big elephant in the room when we talk about expediting the
development of fossil fuels and nuclear energy is the environment and
global warming. I understand. We do need to preserve our environment,
but that preservation of the environment should be a challenge that also
produces millions of jobs. We also need to be able to step back and see
the forest for the trees. Consider this. If we lock up our energy
resources and allow our country to continue to decline, we will
eventually reach a point where we can no longer defend ourselves and our
enemies will overrun the country. They will have no problem exploiting
our reserves and will not concern themselves one bit with the
environment. So the choice seems simple. Either we take advantage of
what we have and allow ourselves to reap the benefits, or we sit on it
and wait for some hostile country to take it over. As I stated above, I
believe we should do whatever we can to preserve and maintain the
environment, but at the same time, the environmental concerns need to be
secondary to our survival as a nation. Just like when doctors amputate a
diseased limb in order to save a person’s life, we should be willing to
accept some disturbance in the environment to save the country. So what
about global warming? That’s another good and tough question. I am not a
physicist or a meteorologist, or any other type of scientist capable of
figuring out the riddle of global warming. But I do know that many of
the scientists doing research and publishing their findings on global
warming were caught fudging their results. They were altering their data
to fit their conclusions. That is fraudulent and plain ass backwards.
There is also another group of prominent scientists that had once been
onboard with the global warming theories and who have since rejected
those theories. And finally there are still other scientists who state
that what we are labeling as global warming is nothing more than a cycle
of high sun spot activity and that there have been times past that have
experienced similarly high temperatures based on sun spot activity.
Empirical observation suggests that the world is, indeed, getting
warmer. But the real question is: are we contributing to that phenomena?
Common sense tells me that the answer is unknowable regardless of the
number of scientists involved in the research. But common sense also
dictates that one of these 3 statements must be true. Mankind is
solely responsible for global warming. Mankind has nothing whatsoever
to do with global warming. Mankind has some effect on global warming
but there are other natural factors that also contribute. So, for the
sake of argument, let’s assume that the first statement is true, i.e. we
are solely and completely responsible for global warming. What are we
going to do about that? Since green technologies are not nearly capable
of meeting our energy needs, we either need to keep using the fossil
fuels while we further develop the green technologies, or we crawl into a
medieval hole and live the way our ancestors lived centuries ago. But
let’s get real here. The same arguments that apply to the environment at
large also apply to global warming. In other words, we might have to
sacrifice a bit of global warming to meet our national strategic energy
requirements, and if we are not willing to accept that, then the
barbarians that will eventually overrun us will.
6. Finally, let
me conclude with bringing this back to a quick look at the differences
offered by our two candidates. Mr. Obama is well on his way to
accomplishing (either by design or sheer incompetence) many of the
horrors described here. He took an oath to uphold and defend the
Constitution of the United States of America. Yet during his term “We,
the People” have lost a good bit of our constitutionally guaranteed
freedoms. At times he acts like he thinks he was elected dictator. When
he could not get his way legitimately through Congress, he resorted to
bribes and parliamentary tricks (e.g. Obamacare). Other times when he
could get what he wants he issued executive orders, developed
regulations, or ignored existing laws which essentially made Congress
irrelevant to him. Likewise he has ignored rulings of the judiciary and
just did what he wanted to do. So, rather than upholding the
Constitution, he is making a mockery of it.
Would Mr. Romney be
any better? Based on these facts it would be impossible for him not to
be better. I do know that Romney will roll up his sleeves and get to
work fixing the economy, putting people to work, creating a sound energy
plan, and implementing a reasonable foreign policy. Will he succeed on
all fronts and to what extent? I really don’t know, but I do know that
he has a proven track record. When he ran Bain Capital he created and
saved many corporations and saved many peoples jobs. When the country
was about to be embarrassed because the Olympics were in jeopardy of
failing, Romney stepped in and saved the entire operation. It is crazy
to me that now Obama wants to vilify him for these successes.
My
feeling is that anyone with an ounce of common sense should be able to
distinguish the clear difference. Voting for Romney should be a “no
brainer”. But, I will end this letter as I began it. Do not accept
anything that I have said here on face value. Do your own homework. Do
your own research. Draw your own conclusions. And vote your own
convictions.
No matter what happens I love you and will be there for you.
Love,
Dad
