I wrote out my reaction to Obama

[bigt8261]

I sent this out to a few of my press contacts.

Feel free to critique or use for your own. Letters to the editor are still very important.

As someone who has gone to great lengths to facilitate a rational discussion between the two sides, I am deeply disturbed by how our President reacted yesterday to the Senate voting against the gun control measures in front of them. At one point the President even said "there were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn't do this".

The President himself called multiple times for a rational debate on the issue, but it appears as though he never took the time to listen himself. How are we supposed to get anything accomplished, when someone in such a prominent position is so unwilling to back up his own pleas. Perhaps if he would spend more time listening to the other side as opposed to demonizing it, he would be able to achieve a better understanding of the issues, and may actually accomplish something.

I in no way believe our president to be a naive or unintelligent individual. Therefore, it concerns me greatly when I see such a person say that the other side "willfully lied" all the while continuing to perpetuate easily and repeatedly debunked arguments such as the 40% number.

Over the past few months, support for the President's proposals has steadily deteriorated. I believe this is because as time went by, more and more people began to see through the President's veil. They saw not a man who truly wanted to work with the other side, but a man who continually and disingenuously perpetuated grossly false statistics. They saw a man readily admit that his proposals would be largely ineffective in addressing the self purported driving force, all the while refusing to accept more promising counter proposals. They saw a man more interested in political smears and pushing an agenda, than working through ideas to find something effective and passable. If your intent is true and your cause is just, then why resort to such tactics?

The President's actions yesterday were not only beneath his office, they were beneath his cause and himself as a person. The truth is, there were items in the proposals that both sides supported. Unfortunately, it came down to all or nothing and we the People, got nothing.

[Pond Scum]

Nice letter bigt!

Here is another letter from another forum.  Permission given to repost:

Shame on You Mr. President

Since Wednesday’s failure of the Senate gun control package,the common meme has shifted from “pass this, for this is common sense” to “shame on you for acting against it.” Shame on me?

No, shame on you.


You relied on a statistic taken from a time when there was no federal law mandating background checks be taken (1993) to “prove” that 40 percent of firearms purchases do not undergo a background check today, and you repeated it often (1). Repeating an out-of-context statistic ad nauseum does not make that figure accurate. In fact, when you have to resort to distorting an outdated statistic your argument was probably on weak ground from the start.



Again, shame on you.


You attempted to control the discussion by reducing your opponents to “the gun lobby,” a mythical figure standing behind a curtain pulling strings. There are between 80 and 120 million Americans who own an estimated 300 million firearms. Gun owners are some of the most politically active voters in this country, and yet you were foolish enough to imply that we were callous, heartless, and possibly criminal for disagreeing with you (2). Insulting the intelligence and dignity of a motivated group of people is a very bad idea. Attempting to rub their noses in it when you fail is an even worse idea.



For a third time, shame on you.



Immediately after the Newtown shootings, you paraded out a group of people who would become professional victims, lobbyists in the fight for the emotions of the American people. You unveiled tired, cookie-cutter proposals that have been introduced (and defeated) for decades, proposals that almost universally would have had zero effect on that tragedy. To all appearances, your legislative responses gave off the appearance that you simply intended to lash out at anything that looked like “law abiding gun owners.” Despite your trumpeting of your various “successes,” you only managed to gain ground in states in which anti-civil rights sentiments were already strong. Your “victories” included telling rape victims that resistance to that heinous act was futile because their (already armed) attacker would have simply taken their weapon, that is,if they could even figure out that they were being raped at all (3, 4). Newtown wasn’t a turning point in American gun politics. It was simply an excuse for you to try your tired game again.
Though it’s getting tired, shame on you.


You placed your weight behind a largely unenforceable provision that would have mandated “universal”background checks. Your agreement with that proposal signified a fundamental misunderstanding of the mechanics of such a proposal. And yet, if a person like me, who as a general rule agrees with the idea that, to obtain a gun from a stranger one should undergo a (quick, painless, and free) background check,disagreed with the proposal for its pointlessness, I was a “coward” who “couldn’t stand up” to the beliefs of a gun rights organization of which I am not even a member. Without a registry, a background check for private sales is wholly unenforceable, for nobody in law enforcement would be able to tell that a sale had even taken place. I could easily debunk the myth that a registry would aid in reducing gun violence (5),but instead I’ll choose a very simple argument: people like me don’t want a registry because people like you exist, and we know that, despite your protests to the contrary, people like you would abuse it at the first opportunity. I and others like me have absolutely no faith in your empty promises, and responsibility for that lack of faith lies wholly with your past behavior.



Again, for the cheap seats, shame on you.


If you are unable to figure out that catchy soundbites and cute Facebook memes don’t demonstrate your point very well, I cannot help you understand. If you are unable to understand that, when you have to spend millions of dollars and thousands of man-hours convincing a group of people that something is “common sense,” it probably isn’t, you are beyond help (6). If you are unable to comprehend that identifying a group of 80-120million people as “accomplices to murder” simply because they disagree with you is poor argumentation, you are a fool (7). Despite your crocodile tears and shouts of protest, you are why you lost.



So, for the last time, shame on you.


(1) http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/338735/40-percent-myth-john-lott
(2) https://twitter.com/piersmorgan
(3)
(4) http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/inside-politics/2013/feb/19/colorado-state-rep-joe-salazars-comments-rape-and-/
(5) http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013...ntrol-congress
(6) http://winteryknight.wordpress.com/2...an-experience/
(7) http://i.imgur.com/TJo1x.jpg