Organizing for empathy

By Tom Quiner

I get an e-mail or two every week from Barack Obama’s political machine, Organizing for Action.

They frequently ask me for money to advance an agenda that I oppose on every possible front. Below is their latest missive, which entices me with the opportunity of meeting the president.

Tom –Ever wanted to meet President Obama? Here’s your best chance yet: Simply add your name today and you’ll be entered to join him backstage at an OFA event next month. We’ll fly three supporters and their guests out — and we’ll cover the hotel, too. I know — it almost seems too easy. So why not throw your name in the hat right now? http://my.barackobama.com/Go-Backstage-with-President-Obama Good luck, Sara Sara El-Amine National Organizing Director Organizing for Action

It would be exciting to meet the president.

If I had a minute to talk to him, if he truly cared about hearing the concerns of a common American, here is what I would say:

Mr. President, I pray for you constantly.

I am one of millions who do exactly that, even though we oppose your approach to governance, even though we’re scared at the direction you’re taking America.

Specifically, I pray for your safety and physical well-being, and your family’s, just as any decent American does.

But I have to admit, I pray hard, so very hard, that God will soften your heart. I pray that you and your government and your political party will begin to show some empathy for us regular folks.

I know you think that your party and its policies are all about empathy.

They’re not.

Respectfully, sir, there is nothing empathetic about blocking regulation on human abortion. In the name of God, how could any civilized human being allow another human being to be ripped to shreds when she or he  feels agonizing pain?

For that matter, sir, how could any civilized nation allow the wholesale slaughter of an entire class of Americans who are the very weakest and most vulnerable?

Where is the empathy?

I know, I know, Mr. President, you and your party embrace a different religion than I (for what else is a set of beliefs involving a faith component called?), one that considers the fetus as a clump of cells.

You consider the fetus a clump of cells at conception right up to delivery. In fact, your record as a state senator suggests you don’t even consider that clump of cells with human parents, a human brain, a human heart, and human arms and legs a human being AFTER its immediate delivery.

Do you know what separates us from the animals, Mr. President? Empathy.

What does empathy mean to you? To me, sir, it means the ability to understand the feelings of others, or as another president from your party would say, to feel your pain.

Animals can’t do it. And yet your party aggressively promotes laws calling for humane treatment of animals, as they should. Just as the other party does.

Sir, isn’t the little person in her mother’s womb more valuable than an animal, more worthy of rights?

Sir, let me be direct, why don’t you feel her pain?

Don’t tell me about a woman’s right to choose.

Choose what?

Every choice has an object, and that choice, the choice you and party condones, involves the death of another person, that little sophisticated clump of cells that is creating a million new cells per second from the instant of her conception.

The complexity of the mathematical models necessary to explain this process is beyond human comprehension.

Uh … I can see the Secret Service is getting fidgety. I’ll wrap this up.

I thank you for allowing me to speak, Mr. President. You’ve got a tough job. I wouldn’t want it.

May God keep you safe. May God shine His light on your heart, sir, and show you the way. May God continue to open your eyes to the pain in our land, and use you as an agent of His boundless Love.

Peace, Mr. President.