posted
On this day, prescribed by law and marked by ceremony, we celebrate the durable wisdom of our Constitution, and recall the deep commitments that unite our country. I am grateful for the honor of this hour, mindful of the consequential times in which we live, and determined to fulfill the oath that I have sworn and you have witnessed.
At this second gathering, our duties are defined not by the words I use, but by the history we have seen together. For a half century, America defended our own freedom by standing watch on distant borders. After the shipwreck of communism came years of relative quiet, years of repose, years of sabbatical - and then there came a day of fire.
We have seen our vulnerability - and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny - prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder - violence will gather, and multiply in destructive power, and cross the most defended borders, and raise a mortal threat. There is only one force of history that can break the reign of hatred and resentment, and expose the pretensions of tyrants, and reward the hopes of the decent and tolerant, and that is the force of human freedom.
We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.
America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one. From the day of our Founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the Maker of Heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our Nation. It is the honorable achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time.
So it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world.
This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary. Freedom, by its nature, must be chosen, and defended by citizens, and sustained by the rule of law and the protection of minorities. And when the soul of a nation finally speaks, the institutions that arise may reflect customs and traditions very different from our own. America will not impose our own style of government on the unwilling. Our goal instead is to help others find their own voice, attain their own freedom, and make their own way.
The great objective of ending tyranny is the concentrated work of generations. The difficulty of the task is no excuse for avoiding it. America's influence is not unlimited, but fortunately for the oppressed, America's influence is considerable, and we will use it confidently in freedom's cause.
My most solemn duty is to protect this nation and its people against further attacks and emerging threats. Some have unwisely chosen to test America's resolve, and have found it firm.
We will persistently clarify the choice before every ruler and every nation: The moral choice between oppression, which is always wrong, and freedom, which is eternally right. America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies.
We will encourage reform in other governments by making clear that success in our relations will require the decent treatment of their own people. America's belief in human dignity will guide our policies, yet rights must be more than the grudging concessions of dictators; they are secured by free dissent and the participation of the governed. In the long run, there is no justice without freedom, and there can be no human rights without human liberty.
Some, I know, have questioned the global appeal of liberty - though this time in history, four decades defined by the swiftest advance of freedom ever seen, is an odd time for doubt. Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals. Eventually, the call of freedom comes to every mind and every soul. We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery. Liberty will come to those who love it.
Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world:
All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know: the United States will not ignore your oppression, or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.
Democratic reformers facing repression, prison, or exile can know: America sees you for who you are: the future leaders of your free country.
The rulers of outlaw regimes can know that we still believe as Abraham Lincoln did: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves; and, under the rule of a just God, cannot long retain it."
The leaders of governments with long habits of control need to know: To serve your people you must learn to trust them. Start on this journey of progress and justice, and America will walk at your side.
And all the allies of the United States can know: we honor your friendship, we rely on your counsel, and we depend on your help. Division among free nations is a primary goal of freedom's enemies. The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies' defeat.
Today, I also speak anew to my fellow citizens:
From all of you, I have asked patience in the hard task of securing America, which you have granted in good measure. Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon. Yet because we have acted in the great liberating tradition of this nation, tens of millions have achieved their freedom. And as hope kindles hope, millions more will find it. By our efforts, we have lit a fire as well - a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world.
A few Americans have accepted the hardest duties in this cause - in the quiet work of intelligence and diplomacy … the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments … the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies. Some have shown their devotion to our country in deaths that honored their whole lives - and we will always honor their names and their sacrifice.
All Americans have witnessed this idealism, and some for the first time. I ask our youngest citizens to believe the evidence of your eyes. You have seen duty and allegiance in the determined faces of our soldiers. You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs. Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself - and in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country, but to its character.
America has need of idealism and courage, because we have essential work at home - the unfinished work of American freedom. In a world moving toward liberty, we are determined to show the meaning and promise of liberty.
In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.
In America's ideal of freedom, the public interest depends on private character - on integrity, and tolerance toward others, and the rule of conscience in our own lives. Self-government relies, in the end, on the governing of the self. That edifice of character is built in families, supported by communities with standards, and sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the Sermon on the Mount, the words of the Koran, and the varied faiths of our people. Americans move forward in every generation by reaffirming all that is good and true that came before - ideals of justice and conduct that are the same yesterday, today, and forever.
In America's ideal of freedom, the exercise of rights is ennobled by service, and mercy, and a heart for the weak. Liberty for all does not mean independence from one another. Our nation relies on men and women who look after a neighbor and surround the lost with love. Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.
From the perspective of a single day, including this day of dedication, the issues and questions before our country are many. From the viewpoint of centuries, the questions that come to us are narrowed and few. Did our generation advance the cause of freedom? And did our character bring credit to that cause?
These questions that judge us also unite us, because Americans of every party and background, Americans by choice and by birth, are bound to one another in the cause of freedom. We have known divisions, which must be healed to move forward in great purposes - and I will strive in good faith to heal them. Yet those divisions do not define America. We felt the unity and fellowship of our nation when freedom came under attack, and our response came like a single hand over a single heart. And we can feel that same unity and pride whenever America acts for good, and the victims of disaster are given hope, and the unjust encounter justice, and the captives are set free.
We go forward with complete confidence in the eventual triumph of freedom. Not because history runs on the wheels of inevitability; it is human choices that move events. Not because we consider ourselves a chosen nation; God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul. When our Founders declared a new order of the ages; when soldiers died in wave upon wave for a union based on liberty; when citizens marched in peaceful outrage under the banner "Freedom Now" - they were acting on an ancient hope that is meant to be fulfilled. History has an ebb and flow of justice, but history also has a visible direction, set by liberty and the Author of Liberty.
When the Declaration of Independence was first read in public and the Liberty Bell was sounded in celebration, a witness said, "It rang as if it meant something." In our time it means something still. America, in this young century, proclaims liberty throughout all the world, and to all the inhabitants thereof. Renewed in our strength - tested, but not weary - we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom.
May God bless you, and may He watch over the United States of America.
[ January 20, 2005, 02:20 PM: Message edited by: Jay ]
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posted
As a sign of respect for the office of the President, I shall not add my MST3K comments. At least not today.
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posted
It's definitely the presidential address from today. I can verify that, although I cannot clarify what the protester said. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Sadly, Tom, I'm pretty sure thats basically the response he would give if queried on that point.
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Tom tom tom…… You can’t be positive and optimistic about anything Republican. You must be in the union. Only they are so negative and down with everything the GOP does as evil. I used to be atheist and think as sort of a moderate. But then I read lots of OSC and began going to church and finalized my conservative beliefs. It always baffles me that so many OSC readers are left wingers. So how liberal are you? You want us to be totally socialist? Which of course is just watered down communism. It’s so nice to have the truth on your side.
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It's great to have the reference, that's for sure. I think people are having a bit of difficulty responding to it as a Landmark because it is a reposting of someone else's words, and I think that is pretty new for our Landmarks. Usually, when there is material quoted, it is put into explicit context of what it means to the presenter. (Sort of like how we encourage one another to not just post links, but to paraphrase or explain them, to put them into context.)
However, the speech is obviously very meaningful to Jay, and certainly I'd argue for as broad a definition of Landmark Thread as possible. Landmarks are going to be whatever people want them to be. It is kind of hard to react to Jay himself in any way, though, as he sort of is just the invisible-ish filter for GWB's words. Nothing else is presented to react to.
*shrug
Not that there's anything wrong with that. I just look forward to getting to know about Jay more. Call me provincial. Posts: 14017 | Registered: May 2000
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Ah, well, as I was writing, Jay sort of re-visiblized.
Hey, Jay! Nice to see you talk a little about yourself. If you don't mind my asking, which parts of OSC's writings were most critical to shaping your views? What were the primary shapers before that?
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quote:Tom tom tom…… You can’t be positive and optimistic about anything Republican. You must be in the union. Only they are so negative and down with everything the GOP does as evil. I used to be atheist and think as sort of a moderate. But then I read lots of OSC and began going to church and finalized my conservative beliefs. It always baffles me that so many OSC readers are left wingers. So how liberal are you? You want us to be totally socialist? Which of course is just watered down communism. It’s so nice to have the truth on your side.
Jay, if your goal is to mock others, then carry on. If you wish to change people's minds to agree with you politically, you'd be well served to radically changed your rhetorical style.
posted
And then there's OSC's fiscal liberalism that lives alongside his social conservatism. Unfortunate how resistant so many people are to being pigeonholed.
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Nah. This is Jay's thread -- and, besides, I'd like to think that I'm open enough about my political opinions that Jay should be able to get a better picture of them if he put a little effort into it.
I may be expecting too much of him, but I hope not.
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Posting this as a landmark raises some interesting questions.
I read this--and I may be mistaken--not as an attempt by Jay to communicate about himself, but as an attempt to force us to give some level of esteem/recognition to the president and his speech. Forcing Hatrack to archive it in the landmark thread.
And I'm not saying this is wrong, but it does give us something to think aout with regard to the quwstion "What is a landmark thread?"
As I said in another thread, I have to recite the first twelve lins of the Aeneid today and that sentance is very similar to the first line of the Aeneid...
"I sing of warfare and a man at war..."
(sorry, I can't stop myself, I refuse to make a mistake)
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I'm not sure how it's a landmark though. I can't decide if Jay has misunderstood the Landmark tradition, or if he just identifies with Bush to such a degree that he feels like posting this speech reveals something essential about him.
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I didn’t mean it for a landmark thread for me. I meant it as a landmark for George W. Bush. I can only stand to post so much since I’m pretty conservative and this board has a very left leaning posting. We’re slow at work lately though so lucky for you! Fun!
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I don't think Jay understands what landmark means on hatrack. I'm actually not sure why there's been so much discussion on that point. It seemed rather obvious.
Jay, a landmark on hatrack means that you've been here for some round number of posts (normally 1000, 5000, something like that) and would like to share with the community some part of the essential "you" that most people don't know about. A landmark is NOT about someone else, it is entirely about who the poster is.
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But, seriously, this is a very well-written speech. It's a speech I wish someone else could have given, because some of those things needed to be said by someone who meant them.
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Pretend my post up there occurred *far* earlier in the conversation. I started writing it, got busy with work, and then made the mistake of submitting it without checking to see if it was still relevant.
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I think Ender and Alvin were some of the bigger influences. Treason was another early one I read. Somewhere in there was one of the Worthing books.
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Holy cow… I already said I didn’t mean landmark as the gazillionth post. Bush is one of the few Presidents to serve a second term and therefore a sizeable landmark.
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Does Landmark Speech work for you anal liberals who don't like to be associated with anything Bush?
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What I'm saying, Jay, is that the purpose of a landmark thread is to archive something special about a contributing member of this forum. If you want that speech archived on this forum as *your* landmark, then leave landmark in the title. If you don't want it archived at Hatrack in the landmark threads, I would take the word "Landmark" out of the title altogether. It's ambiguous.
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This explains it best: http://www.righttrack.us/index.php?page=19jun2003 It is my firm belief that if people really knew what Conservatives stood for and what Liberals stood for, Liberalism as we know it would largely disappear from the American scene. To begin with, I found myself agreeing more with the definition found above (from dmoz.org, an open-source search engine) on Conservatism than with the dictionary definition. The dictionary presents an overly simplistic view of Conservatism (and to be fair, also of Liberalism). Essentially, Conservatism is defined as "an orientation which holds that Man being fallible, tradition is an important transmitter of wisdom, and that maintenance of the established order with moderate reform is preferable to utopian idealism and revolutionary change." As a Christian, I know that man is fallible, and agree totally with this concept. That's part of what draws me to Conservatism. However, for me, it's more than that. I'm literally repelled by Liberalism. Why? In my view, it is not simply un-American, it is anti-American. The whole concept of our government is based on the rights of the people, these rights being God-given. They are not bestowed upon us by a benificent government, and said government is supposed to be of, by, and for the people. Liberals want to change that. "New Liberalism" calls for more government involvement in protecting personal liberty and social justice, but at the expense of economic liberty. In our capitalistic society where people are free to be as educated, prosperous, and involved as they want to be, this is a cardinal sin. Consider that to be a Liberal, you actually align yourself: With abortionists, under the guise of protecting a woman's "rights" (how about the "right" not to get pregnant in the first place?) Against Martin Luther King, who rather than supporting Affirmative Action, desired to be judged "not by the color of [his] skin, but by the content of [his] character" With Larry Flynt, pornographer, under the guise of "Free Speech" Against John F. Kennedy, Liberal Icon, who advocated reduced taxes With Adolf Hitler, who as Liberals would like to do, took away the guns of his citizenry In practice, the ideology of Liberalism seems to be more about being against Conservatism than it is of actually taking a stand and sticking with it on any particular issue. Remember how incensed the Left was over accusations of sexual harassment against Clarence Thomas? Why did their tone change when Paula Jones, Kathleen Willey, and Juanita Broaddrick accused Bill Clinton of things any red-blooded American husband would pound him into sand for attempting with their wives? If they are really Pro-Choice, why are they against laws requiring abortion clinics information relating to the effects of abortion, and alternatives to abortion? By campaigning against such laws, they reveal themselves not as Pro-Choice, but as Pro-Abortion. How any rational, clear-thinking, self-respecting individual could be a deep-down Liberal is beyond reason. Think about it!
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Rather than respond, since I'm laughing too hard to itemize all the things wrong with that little rant, I'm wondering why you left this part out when you copied it. From the article you linked:
"Liberals want to change that. "New Liberalism" calls for more government involvement in protecting personal liberty and social justice (we saw this just recently when the Supreme Court struck down the Texas sodomy law), but at the expense of economic liberty."
And now I'm insanely curious how legalizing sodomy jeopardizes economic liberty. Unless there's a really precise tariff somewhere I don't know about...
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Jay, I think the problem is that you seem to think that all liberals hold all of those views, and therefore belong to and support some giant evil regime.
It's the same thing that annoys Christians when non-Christians accuse them of supporting everything any Christian in history has done.
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Actually, some people calling themselves conservatives do believe this. Just as some people calling themselves liberal would also agree with his list.
Such people scare the crap out of me.
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Nice to see you talk a little about yourself. If you don't mind my asking, which parts of OSC's writings were most critical to shaping your views? What were the primary shapers before that?
