Powerful Leadership/Powerful Change

Associated Press | Photo By David Goldman

 

17 December 2012

Dear President Obama,

I listened to your talk to the Newtown community last evening and am grateful that you were a comforting presence in their lives at such a tragic time.  You spoke about the need for us, as a nation, to change in order to protect our children. I hope that with your leadership, we can have an impact. 

The gun lobby in the country is a powerful force. The notions that “bearing arms” and “standing one’s ground” are acceptable rights under the Constitution seems misguided and wrong.  This adherence to arming a militia – the 2^nd Amendment’s original intent – is a backward thinking concept in the 21^st century. As a modern nation that purports to be the leader of the free world, why do we continue to make the same mistakes humans have made for centuries?  Solving our problems with violent solutions - wars, killing, and torture – has proven over and over again not to be the answer.  As our Commander-in-Chief can you be a role model for change?  In May 2011 Osama Bin Laden was killed by a Navy SEAL team, upon your command, and the news was spread with jubilation and pride.  Murdering the enemy is moral & good. What does that tell our young people? What is the example?

Eleven years ago a terrible act devastated our country, killed three thousand and cause unimaginable suffering for the families and friends of the innocent dead.  In response, the United States met this tragedy by mirroring the violence and causing similar human suffering – multiplying the destruction thousands-fold.  The death of our service men and women alone doubles the death toll of 9/11/2001. The terror of that day in our history pales in relation to the hundreds of thousands of casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. And the terror continues for the Afghan people with our drone program in which the unseen, soundless predators threaten them every moment of every day. We are killing hundreds of other people’s children every year – why is this not a reason for mourning like we mourn for the children in Newtown?  For each perpetrator with a strong moral conviction – the 911 hijackers, Adam Lanza, or the Navy Seals – it seems that the dead are simply “collateral damage”.

So, President Obama can you make a difference?  New gun laws, new mental health programs, more security everywhere, more police surveillance can be put in place.  With all of this will we be more free from danger?  Maybe.  But educating our citizens about alternative ways to resolve conflict, by decreasing our dependence on military solutions, by advocating for peaceful compromise, by not labeling  things or people “good” or “evil” and by working for the peace, security, safety and happiness of every human we can begin to make the changes necessary for a peaceful nation, and a peaceful planet.