Full text of (President!) Bush's inaugural address

The White House, via grandforks.com ^ | 1/20/05 | A great American

[Yardstick]

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.

The Iranian students are going to cheer this line!

Statements like this uplift the morale of the world's dissidents in a very real way. They people hear them and are affected by them. An imprisoned Soviet dissident wrote that when Reagan called the USSR the Evil Empire, word of it spread like wildfire as the prisoners tapped the news through the walls. They loved it.

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.

This line bugs me a little. It agrees with an expanded definition of freedom that includes freedom from want, which is a socialist definition. This is a slippery slope. On the other hand, we've been on this slippery slope since the New Deal, so Bush is really just recognizing the definition that most modern Americans agree with. Hopefully Bush's privatizing and ownership initiatives will help reverse this.

The concerted effort of free nations to promote democracy is a prelude to our enemies' defeat.

I can just hear Europe (and the Democrats) hissing at this line. "Why must he always be so blunt?" etc. When the usual suspects hiss, it's a good thing.

Overall a good speech. I love Dubya's emphasis on freedom. I like knowing that he understands what makes America exceptional and great, and that he agrees with it.

[traviskicks]

Anyone notice that there was a lot of Sharansky in that speech! Good!

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[Publius6961]

Ummm, I've yet to see you post anything sensible, let alone anything that would upset a "sensibility."

Congratulations on the good state of your mental health.
Except, perhaps, your compilsive need to defend your "children"?

[Feiny]

27 times....EXCELLENT!

[gridlock]

Aw, FCOL. That is what the "if" is for, you putz!

[highflight]

publius has obviously run out of Hydrogen!!!

[Publius6961]

Careful. The mindless minions will come and "get" you.

Lockstep is mandatory here.
I can love my president and criticize his errors. They are not mutually exclusive.

[Yardstick]

one always slips through...

They people = They

[monkeywrench]

"When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you."

I love this line! Go signal Iran, Cuba, Chinese. Stand up, already!

[Publius6961]

The only other option, if we wish civilization to survive, is a new Crusade for the destruction of Islam by force.

No it is not.
The only alternatives are not treating them as (undeserved) equals, or wearing Crusader garb.

Quiet, diplomatic silence, is an eloquent alternative.

[Finny]

Monumentally unremarkable speech made more forgettable by his need to continue the fiction, and implying once more that islam is just another religion of normal human beings

On the contrary: I would not be happy with a president who allowed himself to be manipulated by hotheads into insulting all members of one of the largest, fastest growing religions on the planet. I don't like Islam ("Submission") anymore than you do -- I think Islam is the antithesis of freedom and love. It wouldn't surprise me if Dubya thought so too. But it would be stupid and amateurish for him to say so to the world.

I thought the speech remarkable and monumental because Dubya threw down the guantlet to the rest of the world, declaring that in this new millenium, America will strive to make the enslaved, free. Instead of attacking and offending people on the basis of their religion -- as you would have him do, and which would be monumentally stupid -- Dubya spoke in terms of freedom and slavery. It was wise of Dubya: Morally, there is zero concern about offending those who advocate slavery.

[DixieOklahoma]

IT would be nice if the liberal media would stop saying that the president, who was elected with more votes than any other president in history, has to "reach out" and "make consessions" to democrats.

I expecteed no less but they simply will not get off the issue.. I guess i didn't exepct 3 segments on consessions the president "MUST" to make.

[lady lawyer]

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.

Amen.

[LS]

It is a SLOW process. You are right about the tendencies of government to grab power---this, believe it or not, characterized JEFFERSON'S administration, where government spending shot up, and JACKSON'S, where executive abuse of power reached unprecedented levels. Nevertheless, there is some research out there showing that in the U.S., at least, the government's share of wealth has not only peaked, but fallen a tiny bit in the last 20 years; and looking at the spread of "concealed carry" laws, we are retaking the 2nd Amend.

The key LIBERTY issue of the 21st century will be defeating the tort lawyers/trial lawyers, who are the single biggest force in growing government right now. I think there is a way to do this, but I can't find a genius lawyer to try my strategy.

[LS]

Define "compilsive." Don't understand.

[LS]

I can love my president and criticize his errors too, and I can love you and criticize yours, which are, right now, greater than his.

[KMC1]

thanks for posting...

[Ignatius J Reilly]

I too have a muslim Uncle. He is not normal at all, an extremely odd sense of humor that passes many by (a freak in the best sense of the word), he's quite liberal and also very American. While I realise to most here he is unwelcome solely on the basis of his politics and/or religion. But you know what he is a really great kooky guy and I love him very much and last time I checked you can practice whatever religion you like in this country and I wouldn't want to live anywhere where that was not the case.

[1LongTimeLurker]

My uncle is pretty normal, very American and quite conservative. He's also a Muslim. I take it he's not welcome?

Nope, nor are the Shiite Iraqis down the road from me who cheered when Saddam was overthrown and displayed Bush/Cheney posters on their lawn, and whom are working to help the new government of Iraq establish itself.