Dear President Obama,
I don’t actually expect you to read this, much less comment, but other people will read this, and hopefully it will make some difference. I write to you as an American taxpayer and voter. No, I didn’t vote for you. I don’t hesitate to tell you this because we are the United States of America, and I’m free to vote for whomever I so choose, and I didn’t feel you were best for this nation. In all fairness though, neither was Senator McCain.
You have a golden opportunity, Mr. President, to positively affect change in this nation for years to go. With the retirement of Justice Souter, you get to select the next Supreme Court Justice. There has been much speculation about who you will choose. Some comments indicate you expect “feelings” to be the legal gauge. Still others indicate you will choose a pragmatist. I’m going to ask for something a little different. Mr. President, I’m going to ask you to select someone who believes in individual liberty above all other measures save the United States Constitution.
Obviously, many of your advisors are probably urging you to select a woman or a minority, and frankly I don’t care either way, so long as the ideas of freedom are tantamount in their decisions. It is what this nation was founded on, and what we should be striving for every day, both in Congress and in the Courts.
Our founders weren’t perfect Mr. President. For all their talk of freedom, they had a seperate set of rules for blacks, most of whom were slaves. This was their greatest mistake, and I feel their greatest shame. However, as whites prospered under ideas of liberty, blacks didn’t even after Reconstruction. The reason for this was simple. Blacks still didn’t have the same rights as whites, even if the laws as written indicated they did.
Our society can not thrive without individual freedom. While many argue for the “greater good”, and do so earnestly, they’re wrong. The only greater good can come about with individuals are free. They must be free to succeed or fail exclusively on their own merits, with no interference from the government. No bailing out Wall Street, and no support for welfare mothers who refuse to get jobs. No bailing out of Chrysler and no affermative action.
While things like welfare and affermative action sound good on principle, and they really do, in practice they don’t work as intended. Generations have been raised in a welfare state, something that was never intended when the idea was first proposed. Affermative action doesn’t necessarily give equal opportunity, but instead fosters resentment among students who don’t get into the position or school of their choice so an institution can meet a government mandated quota.
The funny thing in my mind, Mr. President, is that affermative action and similar initiatives were only needed because people were denied freedoms in the first place. Unfortunately, you can not increase freedoms by decreasing freedoms. The idea is an oxymoron at best. Instead, freedoms must be universal.
Your nominee should understand that the place of government is not in our bedrooms or our classrooms, but in our courtrooms and legislative rooms. They should understand the role of the Federal government as our founders intended for it to be, a minimal body with minimal powers. Let your nominee be someone who understands that and lets that guide them.
In the confirmation process, every answer should be Constitutional in basis, not feeling orriented. It should be about what the words say, and not what some people think they should. Let those words be about restoring rights stripped away by over zealous but well meaning fools through out history. Let those words be about the most important thing in this nation, the individual American.
Mr. Obama, I admit I’ve been critical of you, as has the rest of the staff here at SWGA Politics. We make no apology for it, as it’s our duty as members of the media. However, it would go a long way towards changing our opinions if you were to do something like this. It would show us that you take our Oath of Office seriously, as seriously as I took my Oath when I joined the Navy.
Freedom is more important than anything else. Please don’t let this chance go to waste.
Sincerely,
Tom
