Dear Representative Frank:

I was delighted to read the quote from your February 19 speech at Scituate High School, as reported by the Scituate Mariner on February 26: “If you do not want a decision to be made politically, do not ask 535 politicians to make it.” My delight may seem unusual given that I am a conservative and have therefore strongly disagreed with virtually the entirety of the statements you have made, positions you have taken, and philosophies you have held throughout your political career.   On this occasion, however, we are in agreement, and I welcome the opportunity that our accord enables.

In taking advantage of that opportunity, allow me to submit a list of decisions that I am asking you and other politicians not to make.

• Please do not decide how the economy should be stimulated through government taxation, borrowing, and spending on behalf of the taxpayers. Instead, protect the freedom of consumers and producers to decide the manner, time, and amount in which they spend their own money, invest their own profits, and incur their own debt, thereby allowing inevitable economic cycles to restore a sustainable prosperity.

• Please do not decide who should receive a mortgage through manipulation and control of the finance market. Instead, protect the freedom of depositors, lenders and borrowers to decide their own level of risk, thereby allowing the free market to reward prudence and thrift, and punish imprudence and greed.

• Please do not decide what should be said on the public airwaves through re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine. Instead, protect the freedom of broadcasters and listeners to decide what they will say and to what they listen, thereby allowing the natural balance between these decisions to determine content.

• Please do not decide when labor should organize through passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Instead, protect the freedom or workers to decide their association and negotiate its conditions without coercion from unions, employers, and government, thereby allowing unions to serve their members, rather than compelling members to serve a union.

• Please do not decide where healthcare must be obtained through the imposition of a national system. Instead, protect the freedom of patients and providers to decide on their own care, caregivers, and spending priorities, thereby allowing the innovation and diversity that competition provides.

I think it unlikely that you made your statement with the above requests in mind. But as I have taken the opportunity of your statement to propose them, I hope you will take the opportunity of my propositions to reconsider your positions: every decision that politicians make for the people is one that the people are no longer free to make for themselves.   Please decide to protect our freedom.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

"Do the day's work.  If it be to protect the rights of the weak, whoever objects, do it.  If it be to help a powerful corporation better serve the people, whatever the opposition, do that.  Expect to be to be called a stand-patter, but don't be a stand-patter.  Expect to be called a demogogue, but don't be a demogogue.  Don't hesitate to be as revolutionary as science.  Don't hesitate to be as reactionary as the multiplication table.  Don't expect to be build up the weak by pulling down the strong."

Representative Delahunt:

Please vote AGAINST the Waxman-Markey American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. In my considered opinion, the imposition of carbon cap-and-trade will have three nearly certain outcomes.

It will damage our economy by generating net increases in both consumer costs and unemployment.

It will worsen our environment as industry moves to countries with less stringent environmental standards, while accomplishing nothing to affect climate change.

It will sweep the Democratic Party from power when voters realize the foregoing.

Despite the fact that the third outcome (to be candid) is not particularly distressing to me, it is hardly worth the first two. I can see no rational reason why you would seek any of them at all.

Please vote against the legislation. Thank you for your time and consideration.

 

Senator Kerry:

I recently saw a portion of the debate on the Senate stimulus bill, in which you criticized tax cuts since they allow individuals freedom to invest anywhere they want, or not to invest at all. You believe that only government has the ability to make those decisions.

Based on this, it is evident that your faith in your own intelligence, compassion, and virtue as a government official exceeds your faith in mine as an individual. In this belief, you may be justified. But if you believe that your faith bestows upon you the right to compel my actions, then you have no faith in freedom.

When you reflect upon that fact that the state you represent contains the towns of Lexington and Concord, gave birth to John Adams and John Kennedy, and kindled the movements for slavery abolition and civil rights, you should be ashamed of your lack of faith in liberty.

Please reconsider your position.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

  …apparently hasn’t happened. Of course there are a few obnoxious detractors, but the majority of what I’ve read shows considerable class. The following was collected from mainstream right-wing websites, and elsewhere.

This is how mature, rational, patriotic citizens lose elections. Those in the loyal opposition should especially take note; it’s an example that will come in handy someday.

“It is an extraordinary thing, an achievement that will be recognized a hundred years hence, that Barack Obama has won the White House. Even those of us who opposed him, and who will no doubt be opposed to many of his policy objectives over the next four years, must pause and say congratulations on an improbable, amazing rise.

“I will never be a conservative who writes paeans to Obama's uplifting message and transcendent candidacy. I don't find him either uplifting or transcendent, and would argue that his opportunism precludes both. But I will try my best to hope for good judgment, pray for pragmatism, and never wish ill for the country just because it would mean ill for Obama and his party.

“Well, it’s official. Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States. Fox and NBC have called the race.

It’s a historic moment.

Congratulations.”

Michelle Malkin

 

“Fox News has declared Barack Obama the winner in Ohio. I believe that ends any plausible chance of a McCain victory…I congratulate Senator Obama and, now that the deed apparently has been done, look forward to writing about his presidency.”

Paul Mirengoff, Powerline

 

“Barack Hussein Obama is the next President of the United States, and we extend our sincere congratulations.

Country first.”

Charles Johnson, Little Green Footballs

“Listen, guys, we just peacefully elected the first black president - that's a beautiful thing, truly. And God be with him - he'll need it. I know it's unsophisticated to say it and so on, but every now and again, we have to remember... we could've been born Saudis or Kenyans or Chinese... but we got unbelievably lucky, unbelievably blessed. When you're born American, every day should be Thanksgiving. So on we go.”

Andrew Klavan

“There will be plenty of time to talk about what President-elect Obama has to do, how he meets the expectations he's raised for his administration, and much, much more.

For tonight, it's enough to say "congratulations." We are Americans first, and therefore I wish the Obamas health and happiness. It's even possible to wish them success -- so long as it is in keeping with the best traditions of American liberty, virtue and prosperity.”

Carol Platt Liebau, Townhall.com

Allahpundit, Hot Air

Ed Morrissey

… As a self-interested columnist, I would hope Obama reassumes his natural hard-left position of his 1996-2005 period that would provide both plentiful column topics and prove counterproductive to his I fear scary agenda. But as an American, I surely hope he doesn’t, and so wish him personally well, and success as a possible centrist commander-in-chief that advances American interests.”

“If today millions of black Americans have a new pride in their country--in our country--that can only be good for America.”

James Taranto, Wall Street Journal

“I want to congratulate Senator Barack Obama on his remarkable achievement. It may have been late in coming, but the election of the first African-American president will stand as a testament to our nation’s founding principle that ‘all men are created equal.’ I also want to extend my best wishes to his wife, Michelle, and two young daughters, as they embark on a new and exciting chapter for their family and our nation. We are all Americans first, standing above party and politics. It’s time to call on the good will of people everywhere to help our president-elect address the pressing needs of the nation.”

Governor Mitt Romney

Karl Rove

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together, to find the necessary compromises, to bridge our differences, and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.”

Senator John McCain

President George W. Bush

 

I could never shake the feeling that Bill Weld was a little too loopy.  Oh well, too right too late.

 August 29, 2008

Senator McCain:

In watching Senator Obama's acceptance speech last night, I noticed that an American ideal was completely absent from his description of America’s promise. Given the thrust of his remarks, I believe that his omission was probably intentional. It was certainly significant.

In any discussion of America’s promise, I find it disingenuous to ignore an ideal that was the thesis of the Declaration of Independence, that was secured by the Constitution, and that was the purpose of the Bill of Rights. It is inconceivable to seek leadership over our future while neglecting an ideal that was the life’s mission of the leaders of our past, from Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, to Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, to John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan. And, it is abhorrent to dismiss an ideal that, to the generations of Americans who have defended this country, was more precious than life itself.

That ideal is freedom.

Knowing the reverence in which you hold it, I trust that you will not allow Senator Obama’s omission to go unnoticed. And, if you become president, I trust that you will not let that promise to go unfulfilled.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

It was written during consideration of the comprehensive bill, but deserves reconsideration now:

June 6, 2007

 

Dear Senator Kennedy,

 

Your efforts to solve the immigration issue through your currently sponsored legislation have inspired me to take a stance for which I would have previously lacked courage: I would like to vacation this summer with you at your home in Hyannis Port.

 

Your familiarity with the warm waters gently lapping the southern coast of the Cape may leave you unaware of the desperate situation of beachgoers on the South Shore of Boston.  Denied benefit of the Gulf Stream’s tropical warming through mere geological accident, the waters of our coast are cold, the waves merciless, and the undertow inhuman. It is most heartbreaking of all to observe the little children who brave the waist-deep wade into frigidity, only to scramble ashore with blue in their lips, chattering in their teeth, and hopelessness in their eyes.  We yearn to escape this spiraling cycle of immersion and desiccation, and I know that you feel our pain.

 

You know that this is a nation of vacationers, built by and for vacationers.  You know that from the gentle beaches of Martha’s Vineyard to the rugged slopes of Malibu, the spirit of tourism has built a dream in this place called America that is the hope of mankind. You know that this hope, the yearning of the human spirit for free and unfettered recreation, is universal, and cannot be constrained to one country, one city, or one family compound.

 

Since I know how busy you are, particularly at this moment with the serious and sober consideration of amendments to your bill, there is no need for you to respond with a formal invitation.  My family and I can simply arrive at your property and obtain access to it through any means necessary.   Knowing that you recognize the ineffectiveness of border enforcement through fences, guards, and guns, I assume that only minimal effort and damage will be necessary for our entry. And, knowing that you understand the futility of incarceration and deportation, I am confident that our trespass will receive swift forgiveness once you perceive our sincere desire to respect all the laws that we hadn’t already broken.

 

While individuals of lesser enlightenment may think that the rule of law was established to protect property rights, and thereby the stability and integrity of a civilized society, you know better that it exists to protect the weak from the strong, the poor from the rich, and the underprivileged from the privileged.  While it would be completely appropriate for me to employ the law to bar you from my property (as Mexico does with its illegal immigrants), I know that you would consider it immoral to seek such an enforcement against a relatively weak, poor, and underprivileged person, as I am in comparison to you. It would be a betrayal of all for which you believe that this country stands.

 

In addition to leisure activities, I look forward to enjoying the fulfillment of all basic human needs to which my sojourn with you will entitle me, such as food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, top shelf liquor, and cable television with premium channels.  I also eagerly anticipate our discussion of other means by which your wealth and prosperity can benefit the less fortunate members of (what will become) our household.  Thank you very much for allowing me, as you have so many others, this opportunity to be brought (quite literally) “out of the shadow and into the sunlight.”

September 13, 2007

The Honorable Deval Patrick

Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Massachusetts State House

Boston, Massachusetts 02133

 

 

Dear Governor Patrick,

 

I am writing in regard to your speech at the September 11 commemoration ceremony, in which you assessed the cause of the disaster as “a failure of human beings to understand each other.”  I strongly disagree with your assessment.

 

It seems a certainty that understanding, compassion, love, and the other qualities addressed in your speech are necessary attributes of any civilized society. It seems a possibility that expressing these qualities to those unacquainted with civilization may encourage them toward civility. However, the perpetrators of the attack of September 11, 2001, were not unacquainted with our society and its qualities.  They were well aware of them, but yet rejected them, and further, sought their destruction. To extend the benefits of civilization to those who willfully reject its obligations and ruthlessly attack its existence is to risk that very destruction.

 

If you are determined to advocate the extension of understanding to those who seek to embrace barbarism, I hope you will advocate it as well for those who seek to uphold civilization.  If I may presume to include myself among the latter, then allow me to express my specific desires for understanding.

 

I hope that when I oppose the government mandated redistribution of wealth through social welfare programs, I am not denounced as greedy and uncompassionate.  Rather, I hope that I am understood as a human being who believes that individuals as well as society benefit eminently more from an ethic of hard work and personal responsibility than from an expectation of entitlement and collective dependence.

 

I hope that when I advocate enforcement of our immigration laws by the federal government with the cooperation of our commonwealth, cities, and towns, I am not condemned as a xenophobe and racist. Rather, I hope to be understood as a human being who believes that when disrespect for any law is promoted, respect for all laws is diminished, as are the freedoms they protect.

 

I hope that when I support the preservation of marriage exclusively for the union of one man and one woman, I am not accused of bigotry and hatred.  Rather, I hope to be understood as a human being who believes that the distinct recognition of an institution that has overwhelmingly contributed to the propagation of our species and society cannot lightly be cast aside without endangering both.

 

I hope that when I disagree with the increasing prohibition of religious expression in the public domain, I am not dismissed as unenlightened and theocratic.  Rather, I hope to be understood as a human being who believes that the freedom to publicly embrace faith is as important as the freedom to publicly condemn it, and that its public expression by one constitutes no compulsion of its acceptance by another, beyond the internal compulsion of his or her own conscience.

 

Although I suspect that my hopes for understanding are in vain, I’m certain there is one thing you have not failed to understand: no matter how much I am dismissed, accused, denounced, and condemned, I will never fly a plane into a building.

 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

An argument.  A building.  A civilization.  Without structure, they are all consigned to eventual collapse.