President Barack Obama took the ceremonial oath of office today (the actual one was yesterday to fulfill a constitutional requirement). I’m certainly not happy about November’s results that led us to today. One thing I can appreciate, and I believe we as Americans should all appreciate is that we had yet another peace transition or reaffirmation of power. No coup, no executions, no blood in the streets. Forty-four times we have seen this and it certainly makes the United States exceptional. Look at what’s happening in the Middle East when they have a change in power or try to have a change in power. So let’s be thankful for that. I hope on January 20, 2017 that we will have a conservative President-elect who will take the oath of office. That said, I want to dissect President Obama’s 2013 inaugural address.
We affirm the promise of our democracy. We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional — what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
You can cut the irony with a knife here. He cites the right to life, but upholds the murder of preborn infants in the womb. Since Roe v. Wade was decided 40 years ago over 55 MILLION babies never had the opportunity to take their first breath. He believe all are created equal unless you haven’t been born.
He celebrates liberty, but he he denies it through making faith-based employers, companies and organizations violate their religious consciences through the HHS mandate that requires employers pay for insurance that covers contraceptives and abortifacients.
Starting his second term he’s promised to pursue an agenda to diminish our cherished right to keep and bear arms.
Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.
We haven’t relinquished our skepticism of central authority? The Founders did. That’s why we have the 10th Amendment. President Obama obviously believe in this since he’s been working hard to centralize more authority and power at the federal level. He seems to think that the only solution to our “ills” is government. He’s governed that way and his inaugural address bears witness.
We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.
I agree with this… however throughout his speech he mentions “equal” or “equality” six times or so. He’s goes beyond this however. He’s talking about sameness… collectivism… “being fair.”
We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.
Oh vey, this is not settled, by any stretch of the imagination. It’s only settled in the minds of the liberal elite.
The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure — our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
Still looking for prosperity from green jobs and looking and looking….
Apparently he’s setting us up for more intervention what kind of intervention remains to be seen. With seeing our Air Force involved in Libya, and our recent involvement providing the French air support it looks like he will not shirk off military intervention even if there are no compelling U.S. national security interest.
We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom. And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes: tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.
He gives a nod to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
I need to pick the following segment apart a little because he throws in a flurry of liberal rhetoric here.
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity — until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country. Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.
First off, I’m against women getting paid less simply because they are women. How much is this really happening? Is it really because of their gender? If so there are already laws that address this. What does the President suggest? I shudder to think. It is not the role of government to assign value to particular jobs and skill sets – period.
Secondly, homosexuals are treated equal. What they want is special status. They don’t want equality and what President Obama is talking about here is sameness, not equality. So let’s redefine institutions in order to reflect sameness as if there are no differences in opposite sex couples and same-sex couples. Also does he propose to upend the 31 states who have voted on this matter and rejected it?
Third, voters are not being disenfranchised. I suppose he doesn’t want to acknowledge people being bussed in to vote gummed up people getting in and out in some places. People can petition the Secretary of State in their states or their county auditors if there are not enough polling locations.
Fourth, he’s promoting amnesty. We welcome immigration – legal immigration. He hasn’t secured the borders, but he continually pushes amnesty
That is our generation’s task — to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.
Well he’s right we don’t define liberty the same way. He has zero problems restricting it for some, and then to promote his brand of liberty for others.
And therein we have heard what is definitely the most liberal inaugural address in my lifetime if not in the history of our nation.