As I have pointed out to you, my fellow Rockers on the Right Side, I get regular e-mails from the Obama camp. They ask me for $5 every day, and they assume that because I logged in to their website once during the last election campaign that I am one of them. It’s amazing to me that they are still gathering campaign contributions despite the fact that their leader is a lame duck in his second term.
Anyway, the messages are usually amusing. The Obama group often publishes a “letter” supposedly written by a kid to tug at my heartstrings and shame me into sending my daily $5. They want me to FEEL, but they certainly don’t want me to THINK.
A while back they used this one, ostensibly composed by a 17-year old whose father was murdered by one of his former employees, along with a UPS driver and three other employees:
Friend –
My dad, Reuven Rahamim, was killed this past September in a mass shooting. I was 17 years old, one of 15 children who lost a parent that day. I’m honoring his memory — and those of many others who have fallen — by doing something about gun violence.
Whether you’ve been personally affected by gun violence or not, you need to be part of this fight, too. Since my dad’s death, I’ve learned that my family’s experience is not as uncommon as one might expect. The statistics are horrifying: 12,000 Americans are murdered with guns every year. But the true toll of gun violence is borne by the tens of thousands of sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, and wounded survivors left behind.
When I think of the number of lives that could have been saved by universal background checks or better access to mental health services, I simply don’t understand why Congress doesn’t act right away.
So join me in speaking out. Our stories from all across the country will reaffirm the all-too-real consequences of this unending violence and the need for sensible solutions. Share why you support legislation to keep dangerous weapons out of the wrong hands.
I know my dad is watching right now as I fight alongside many other Americans for common-sense legislation. He deserves a vote. We all deserve a vote. Now is the time.
Thanks,
Sami Rahamim, Minneapolis, MN
Sad story, and probably a good kid. But think about it — this family is being used. No way any 17-year old product of our public schools wrote that letter. Look at the construction and vocabulary. How many teenagers use phrases like “the true toll” and “reaffirm the all-too-real consequences”? How many can correctly spell “borne”, let alone use the word in a sentence? If this letter had included the words “I’m like” twice in every sentence, I would trust that Sami wrote it, not a group of leftist zealots in a backroom of the White House.
The messages from the Obama camp are always simplistic and emotional. They never include any background from which the reader can make an informed decision. The premise of this letter is based on one statement: “12,000 Americans are murdered with guns every year.” Okay, who pulled the triggers — mostly drug dealers and gang-bangers? Who were the victims –mostly other drug-dealers and gang-bangers? How many of these murders took place in areas under strict gun-control laws? What is the real cause of gun violence, guns? Or is it drugs and gangs? And what are you doing about drugs and gangs, besides opening our borders to create more of both?
Unmentioned is this fact: gun violence decreased by 49% from 2003 to 2011, despite an increase in gun ownership.
Unfortunately, the average American is no longer capable of discernment. With our embarrassingly tiny little attention-spans, and having been thoroughly indoctrinated by the education/news media/government cabal to swallow everything shoveled our way, we are easily steered to the desired conclusion.
Call us “low-information voters”. “Sheeple.” “Slacktivists”.
Like Aretha says, “We Better Think.”
Tom Balek – Rockin’ On the Right Side
You better think (think)
Think about what you’re trying to do to me
Yeah, think (think, think)
Let your mind go, let yourself be free
Let’s go back, let’s go back, let’s go way on way back when
I didn’t even know you, you couldn’t have been too much more than ten
I ain’t no psychiatrist, I ain’t no doctor with degree
It don’t take too much high IQ to see what you’re doing to me
Think – Aretha Franklin
You HAVE TO stop what you are doing and enjoy this classic cut – ‘Aretha, Matt “Guitar” Murphy, Akroyd and Belushi, and the rest of the Blues Brothers – 1980
I spent a day with some friends from Australia last weekend. It’s sad to say, but they were more engaged in and knowledgeable about American politics and economics than most fellow Yankees I meet.
Sometimes we fuss when things don’t go the way we want, and we wonder if we are stuck with life as it is. We tend to forget that before long, everything will have changed.
I would bet that most of you who Rock with me On the Right Side probably are not on the President’s mailing list. I am.
Seventh grade at Paris Gibson Junior High School in Great Falls, Montana, 1966. Compared to schools today, it was an alien world.
While living in Montana for many years my opinions about illegal immigration were based on what I heard in the media. Montana doesn’t have an illegal immigrant problem. I saw the growing numbers of Mexicans and Central Americans when visiting western cities like Denver, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City, but still didn’t have any first-hand experience.
