An excellent piece, by noted Pulitzer Prize-winning and Tony- and Oscar-nominated playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film directo David Mamet. Surprisingly, this was printed in the very Left tilted Los Angeles Jewish Journal.
I'm reproducing it here in its entirety because its an excellent read that's very uncharacteristic of the paper (I still can't believe it got in), because they give links to a number of 'answer' screeds about the piece that defy description and because I don't feel like giving them traffic. Emphasis mine:
To those Jews planning to vote for Obama:
Are you prepared to explain to your children not the principles upon which your vote is cast, but its probable effects upon them?
Irrespective of your endorsement of liberal sentiments, of fairness and “more equal distribution,” will you explain to your children that top-down economic policies will increasingly limit their ability to find challenging and well-paid work, and that the diminution in employment and income will decrease their opportunity to marry and raise children?
Will you explain (as you have observed) that a large part of their incomes will be used to fund programs that they may find immoral, wasteful and/or indeed absurd? And that the bulk of their taxes go to no programs at all, but merely service the debt you entailed on them?
Will you tell your children that a liberal government will increasingly marginalize, dismiss and weaken the support for and the safety of the Jewish state?
Will you tell them that, in a state-run economy, hard work may still be applauded, but that it will no longer be rewarded?
Will you explain that whatever their personal beliefs, tax-funded institutions will require them to imbibe and repeat the slogans of the left, and that, should they differ, they cannot have a career in education, medicine or television unless they keep their mouths shut?
Will you explain to them that it is impossible to make a budget, and that the basic arithmetic we all use at the kitchen table is not practiced at the federal and state level, and to suggest that it should be is “selfishness?”
Most importantly, will you teach them never to question the pronouncements of those in power, for to do so is to risk ostracism?
Are you prepared to sit your children down and talk them through your vote on the future you are choosing for them?
Please remember that we have the secret ballot and, should you, on reflection, vote in secret for a candidate you would not endorse in public, you will not be alone.
Inwardly, in their heart of hearts, many Jews who would never dare voice it publicly understand that Barack Obama is no friend of Israel or Jews...he has far too many intimate associations with rabid Israel bashers and anti-semites, and his actions speak a lot louder than his words.
There is a deep seated core of Israel hatred alive and well in the Democrat party. All that's necessary to see that is to take a good look at the differences between the 2008 Democrat platform and the original 2012 one. written with the full knowledge and collaboration of this president and his campaign. That was something even a pro-Israel democrat like Chuck Schumer couldn't quite swallow.
And remember what happened at the Democrat convention when President Obama saw that the platform didn't poll well and belatedly tried to defuse the issue by ramming through some changes?
Nor is this hypocrisy limited to Barack Obama when he's not running for election.
I know there are Jews who for their own reasons simply can't vote for a Republican no matter how philosemitic or pro-Israel that candidate is.
My own parents, rabid FDR Democrats, faced that dilemma in 1972 and 1980. They weren't going to vote for Nixon or Reagan, but as passionate lovers of Israel they weren't going to vote for McGovern and especially not for Jimmy Carter.
So they simply voted for the down ticket candidates and didn't cast a vote for president that year.
If you simply can't vote for Mitt Romney no matter what, fine. Just don't vote to put someone like Barack Obama back in the White House.
You owe Israel and the Jewish people that much. And after you come out of the voting booth, you can always tell your friends anything you like.
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