Monday, October 28, 2013

An Open Post to President Obama (Which He Will Never Read)

Mr. President, I don’t have money to give you.  I am up front about this because I know that money is what will make things happen in Washington D.C.  This is not a cynical view, it is a realistic one.  So I know that what I have to say will probably not have a huge impact.

Nor will this probably grace your eyes.  Sure, there are some operatives who will read it for “subversive” or “dangerous” content.  But I will probably be labeled as “fat and unimportant” in the grand scheme of things.  Fine by me, as I’d rather not catch the attention of some highly motivated moral busybody in any government at any level.

But I have to urge you to stand up and start taking responsibility for your actions or the actions done in your name.  You are the President.  Now, your role in the decision making may be minimal, but that doesn’t diminish the expectations and responsibilities that come with the office of the Presidency.

For one thing, your administration has yet to have passed an actual budget for the Federal government.  Now, this is largely due to the disruptions in Congress and I do acknowledge that you technically have no power over what happens there.  But President Obama, you are supposed to be the head of your party.  The Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has continually disrupted the budget process and refuses to compromise with the Republicans in the House.  You can stop that madness by merely telling Senator Reid to stand down and come to the table.

As President, you have the ability to define the budget, which you have done.  However, you have yet to propose a balanced budget.  Instead we have seen the National Debt nearly double since the beginning of your presidency.  And not just a small deficit, but a deficit of nearly double the size of tax revenues.  Former Congressman and Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul proposed a plan that would balance the budget within a single term of his presidency.  No other candidate, including yourself, has even come close to that.  And if he was only half promising such a thing, it would have been better than the plan you have in place right now.

The fact is, in order to reign in the budget and balance it, you have to make hard choices.  I know that they are tough to make, but at the same time the alternative is much worse.  It will be much worse for all of us, save only an elite few who, I suspect, you know and who are counting on you to continue being the irresponsible puppet that you appear to be.

I am asking you to also take responsibility for your failures and own up to them.  The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has proven to be nothing more than an utter failure.  It has eliminated insurance plans and options for people who cannot get health insurance through their employer and made it more expensive for everyone else.  Not to mention the sheer incompetence in the development of the website.

I know that you inherited a huge mess from your predecessor, but every President inherits some kind of mess.  Transitions in power are never pleasant affairs.  At least ours has not been violent thus far.

But you have to understand that even if you did inherit a huge mess, you had no right to blame your predecessor.  Great men stand up and deal with the problems at hand, they do not whine about them.

As for the foreign policy you seem to have endorsed, it is a disaster as well.  Despite winning a Nobel Peace Prize, you have spent a good portion of your Presidency trying to start another war.  There has been no reason to send Americans overseas in order to die for the sake of some vague goal.  On top of that, war crimes have been committed in the name of the United States under your watch.  Drone strikes on civilian targets are acts of aggression and war, not acts of peace and respect.

You promised to have a transparent government, yet you yourself have overseen the prosecution of the whistleblower Bradley Manning, who exposed war crimes committed under the authority of your predecessor.  On top of that, Edward Snowden is effectively exiled for exposing the massive Fourth Amendment violations that have occurred under your watch.

Do we live in a free society or do we live in a society where everyone is suspect?

And while we are discussing matters of justice, why have you not had NSA head James Cooper placed under arrest for lying to Congress.  After all, you saw fit to prosecute Roger Clemens for doing so.  And how much more so is it wrong for a top official within the bureaucracy to lie to Congress, whose main job is bureaucratic oversight?  If members of the bureaucracy are lying even to Congress, then how can the average citizen trust the government?

Mr. President, you are the top guy.  You have the power and position to stop this madness and move our country in a better direction than your predecessors did.  Instead you have squandered your time by making excuses, giving pretty speeches, and going on lavish vacations.  In short, you have acted like every other average asshole has when they get the kind of power you have.

I am simply asking for you to do better.  You represent over 310 million people and therefore everything that is done in your name is done in ours as well.  Stop acting like a child and man the fuck up.