Today I sent an email to the President of the United States of America. "What temerity!" you say, "What gall!!" My email was prompted by a little news item about the Administration's lawyers stating that... oh, heck go
HERE and read the news article for yourself.
Here is the text of my email.
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Dear Mr. President,
I realize that you personally probably read very few of these emails, but on the off-chance that my luck may be better than I suspect, that is how I started this email.
I also realize that, given that you cannot now be re-elected, my opinions and the opinions of hundreds of thousands of like-minded individuals probably mean very little to you. For that matter, they seem to have mattered very little prior to this time. After all, we are only citizens.
I am an American veteran. I joined the US Navy the same year I graduated from high school, and altogether spent over 12 1/2 years in active service. I have served and defended my country.
I am also a registered Republican. I voted for your father every time he ran, and I voted for you both times you were elected. I now deeply regret that last choice. Your actions of the last few months at first invoked disbelief, then dismay and at the last outrage at the way you have betrayed the trust of the people who elected you.
It is your actions, sir, and those of your officials, which prompted both my wife and myself to vote against any Republican on the ticket in this year's midterm election, simply as a way to try and assure that the same sort of heinous misgovernment does not continue. Unfortunately, Mr. President, this does nothing to correct the errors and missteps you and your administration have perpetrated, and continue to perpetrate, upon the people of this nation and even upon foreign nationals.
I leave you with these quotes, sir.
“Why of course the people don’t want war. Why should some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don’t want war: neither in Russia, nor in England, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship…Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.” —
Hermann Goering, at the Nuremberg Trials before he was sentenced to death
“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth becomes the greatest enemy of the State.”
— Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels, propaganda minister for Adolf Hitler
and finally...
“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
— Thomas Paine——
Tony Burton
