Letters to the Editor

+ No more ads for you!
Dear Editor:
SHAME ON YOU!
Your incendiary editorial, “The anti-American president,” in the July 19 edition left me “breathless, dumbfounded and enraged!”

While I respect your right of freedom of speech, you have blatantly neglected the responsibilities that accompany those rights.

Your “call to arms” is symbolic of yelling fire in a crowded theater.

Your less-than-subtle call to insurrection is frightening and worthy of review by the Department of Justice. Your disdain for the president, based on your own ideology, is repugnant to those of us who disagree with you, although we respect your right to print your extreme position.

However, this time you have gone too far. Our organization will no longer advertise in, or support your newspaper. We hope others will join us.

President Barack Obama, is an American, of the people, elected by the people, for the people in one of the most difficult times in American history. He is OUR president, whether you like it or not.

There are many of us who appreciate all that he has accomplished. We are confident that he will continue to do so during the next four years, in spite of your horrific “call to arms!”
H. Murray Blueglass
President, Longboat Key Democratic Club

+ Offensive, disgraceful!
Dear Editor:
I found your opinion page of “The anti-American president” offensive, disgraceful and dishonest.

You are totally ignorant of historical fact to cast such aspersions on this president. You may not like the man, but he does not “resemble Third World socialist, anti-capitalist despots.”

He has perhaps promised more than he can give, but he and his administration understand that there are now two Americas and this should not be.

Indeed, government has the duty to help those who cannot help themselves and functions to provide basic services that individuals cannot.

You are pandering to those few who ignore history and are liable to destroy the American Dream.
Henrietta Barkey
Longboat Key

+ Have you no shame?
Dear Editor:
Arguing that President Obama hates America, The Observer’s July 19 editorial attack goes beyond partisanship rhetoric.

To criticize an elected leader over public policy with which you disagree is no license to morph into delegitimizing the government.

Your oft-expressed hatred of Barack Obama reflects the same opposition at all costs engineered by Republicans in Congress.

Congressional Republicans, in lock step, now oppose policies they long advanced — cap and trade, the Affordable Health Care Act mandate.

Your editorial can only be read as denying credit to the Obama administration for eliminating Bin Laden; for returning our uniformed men and women from Iraq; and drawing down our forces from Afghanistan. Saving the U.S. auto industry, which Mitt Romney asserts he would not have done, is apparently in your view “anti-American” and “anti-capitalist.”

I urge The Observer to consider whether your tone and tenor of expressed hatred invites comparison to the pamphleteers who promoted the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror, and the writings of a certain Austrian artist during Germany’s Weimar Republic.

That poverty in this country is at levels not experienced for decades and that infrastructure investment and research and education are on the downturn is a reflection of unprincipled distortion of the facts, unbridled determination to bring down Obama, even if it takes down America. Have you no shame?
Marvin H. Morse
Longboat Key

+ You are so hate filled
Dear Editor:
We opened your Pelican Press paper and could not believe the article on “The anti-American president.”
I have never read any article so hate filled. You are scary to us.

This article was nothing more than an article written to stir up hatred and resentment.

What is wrong with these people? They distorted the words he used.

I came from Texas. Bush country. I was sick to see what he and Dick Cheney did to this country, but not once did I disrespect the office of the president of the United States. This article, like Fox News, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity, does nothing but cause mass shootings like we had last week.

Not one of those people named in the article got to where he is today without help somewhere along the line.

I owned the largest woman-owned specialty advertising company in the country for almost 20 years. I received many awards throughout all those years. I never, ever used my business to spread hate and resentment. There were many times I used the opportunities the government offered to help me build my business.

Your headline and article so filled with hate just make things worse all the way around.
I wish I had not read this article because it broke our hearts.

It would have been better to just run a full page ad for Romney than to print this disrespectful article about a sitting president.
Ira J. and Peggy Ann Chupp
Sarasota

+ Hateful clap-trap
Dear Editor:
You hate Obama; OK, we get that. I am not crazy about him, either.

But, Good Lord, to compare him to Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro is over the top.

The quote-box statements seem pretty mild. A call to arms? Please.

You undermine your own credibility by spouting this kind of hateful clap-trap. Better if you had explained to the readers what Obama did to welfare, removing the work requirement.

And here’s another thing: Do we need to read this kind of diatribe in the Pelican Press? It is a local paper that does a good job with local reporting. Stick to what you do well!
Donna Liberman
Sarasota

+ Just plain crazy
Dear Editor:
I expect to read strong, right-wing opinions in the Observer, but today’s editorial, “The Anti-American president,” was over the top.

To characterize Barack Obama as anti-American, anti-individualism — even Marxist — is just plain crazy, not to mention completely hateful, disrespectful and uncivil.

I just don’t get how you can argue with Mr. Obama’s premise that “If you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own …”

Yes, it is this American system of government with roads and bridges built with taxpayer money by a government; schools built and run by the government with the taxpayer money; and public libraries (to name a few) that allow successful entrepreneurs make their businesses “happen.”

No matter how “hard” you worked, if you didn’t live in a country with the rule of law and a court and criminal justice system paid for with taxpayer money but run by the government, your business could be closed down and your assets taken away at the whim of the people in power.

Successful American entrepreneurs have used their wealth to do many good things around the world, but they would not be able on their own to provide the infrastructure I described above.

I hope you will consider a more respectful and civil tone in your future columns.

As a retired Sarasota County teacher, I would not have wanted my students to read this column and conclude that your extreme language was an appropriate way to communicate. I might tell them how lucky we are to have the Bill of Rights with freedom of the press and use this column in a lesson to illustrate the abuse of that right.
Candace Fisher
Sarasota

+ Praise to the paper
Dear Editor:
When I come to Longboat Key, the first thing I do is grab a copy of the Longboat Observer. Not only does it tell me everything I need to know that is going on in the local area, it is a magnificent little paper.

Thank you for your candid editorials. I have enjoyed immensely what you do to try to keep our little town of Longboat Key on the straight and narrow.

I enjoy reading The Observer more than I can tell you. Ninety percent of your editorials, I wish I had written. They are so good. We are on the same page. Keep up the good work.
Jim Bowers
Longboat Key; Knoxville, Tenn.

+ How Castro started
Dear Editor:
Thank you for the July 19 My View about “the Anti-American president.” A lot of us feel that way, and it’s refreshing when someone so publicly expresses it.

This president is showing all the signs of a Marxist. I know, because I left Cuba in 1966, and that’s how Castro started his “change.”

Please, keep your opinion going.
Ada Perez
Siesta Key

+ Commends editorial
Dear Editor:
I want to commend you for writing about “The anti-American president.” Hopefully, your editorial was read by many independents and some intelligent Democrats who may see the light as to what this president is trying to do to this country. His statement — “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” — illustrates how misguided he really is.
Roger Rogos
Sarasota

Dear Editor:
Your editorial, Obama, “The Un-American President” not only twists facts, it crosses the line.

First, anyone who actually watched the Obama speech and carefully reads the copy of that speech knows that the President stated that people who start their own businesses didn’t build roads, bridges and a wealth of infrastructure that allows all businesses to thrive. You failed to highlight the previous sentence, “Somebody invested in roads and bridges” which makes this perfectly clear. To think that the President or, anyone for that matter, believes that people who start their own businesses have nothing to do with building that enterprise is ludicrous. I know, I’m a small business owner.

Right wing partisans and the Romney campaign have chosen to selectively misquote the President in an effort to deflect widespread concern, even by many conservatives, about the Republican candidates withheld tax returns and offshore and Swiss tax accounts. Is this activity un-American?

But, more importantly, to call a sitting President, regardless of party affiliation “Un-American” fails the “stink test.” It adds to a continual right wing assault on Barack Obama’s “legitimacy.” You have joined crazies like Donald Trump who still want to pile on the Kenyan, Muslim, African American President who lacks a proper birth certificate. “He’s not one of us....he’s Un-American.”

Obama, whether you vote for him or not, is certainly a clear example of what a true American can be. Raised by a single mother with the drive to attend this countries finest schools and serve the public on the local, state and national levels. Married to another American success story and raising two children, the man gives generously to charity, pays his taxes and, as a public servant, makes all of his financial records open to the public. If this is not what being an “American” is all about, what is?
Michael Bille
Siesta Key, FL