Posted on 01/21/2005 4:52:47 AM PST by beaureguard
If you can believe this, President Bush's Inaugural speech is catching flack from some quarters, particularly American leftists and Euro-weenies, because he used the "F" word 27 times. This is an "F" word that is even more offensive to the left than the "F" word. Yup ... Bush said "Freedom" at least 27 times during the speech.
Evidently Bush didn't get the booklet of instructions for Presidents making State of the Union or Inaugural speeches. You're supposed to talk about security, not freedom. Bush was talking about spreading freedom around the world, and much of the world was having none of it.
What is the problem with freedom? I think that the biggest problem is that people realize that along with personal freedom comes personal responsibility. To be sure, Americans will say nice things about freedom ... right up until the time that personal responsibility rears its ugly head. Freedom of speech? Sure, that takes no real effort. Freedom of religion? No problem there. It doesn't really require you to actually do anything. Introduce responsibility and consequences for irresponsibility, and the love of freedom suddenly wanes.
I saw a good example of the limited American love affair with freedom yesterday on CNN. Three women from three generations were being interviewed; grandmother, mother and daughter. They were being questioned on President Bush's privatization plans for Social Security. The grandmother was against it. She said that this would be like the government teaching people to gamble. She equates investing in the stock market to gambling, and has decided that it is wrong. Let the government take your money, and then dole it out to you later. Not that's just fine.
The daughter was particularly troubling. On the one hand she said that she had no confidence at all that there were going to be any Social Security benefits for her when she reached retirement age, whatever that retirement age might be. On the other hand she said that she wasn't in favor of privatization because she didn't want to have to go to the trouble of making decisions on how her retirement money should be invested. She would just rather have the government do it for her.
More examples? They're not difficult to fine. Just go to the basic levels of our society. Should you be free to negotiate with an employer on the basis of salary? No ... we need a minimum wage. Should you be free to buy a health insurance policy that doesn't include pregnancy benefits? No .. the government stands in the way. Should you be free to chose who is going to come into your home and tell you what drapery fabric would look good with your throw pillows? No. The government tells you who you can and can't hire for that job. Do people complain? Do they protest? Not a bit. Just accept the government controls and regulations and move on.
There is another troubling aspect of our lost love for freedom. When freedom isn't cherished people are opposed to paying a price to make freedom secure. The United States is trying to introduce freedom into the heart of the tyrannical Arab World. As in the past, people are dying in the effort. Now we have people saying that it's peace, not freedom that matters. That might sound good until you realize that by "peace" they simply mean the absence of armed conflict. Tyranny? Fine. Not even the most basic of freedoms? No problem ... as long as there's peace. Today an astounding number of people, principally on the left, believe that peace without freedom is just fine, thank you very much.
I've been watching Inauguration and State of the Union speeches for years. I've read almost every State of the Union speech ever delivered. Over the decades there were some obvious changes. Take the word "democracy," for instance. You never saw that word in a State of the Union speech until sometime around the 1930's. The idea of "democracy" suddenly became popular when politicians sought to expand the power of the state beyond anything imagined by our Constitution. To do this they needed to cite the "will of the people." Majority rule moved the rule of law aside, and our modern "democracy" was born. Along with the arrival of the "D" word came disappearing references to freedom and more emphasis on security ... government provided security. George Bush's speech yesterday was a market difference from this trend. Too bad it fell on so many deaf and unwilling ears.
THERE IS ONLY ONE FORCE OF HISTORY THAT CAN BREACK THE REIGN OF HATRED AND RESENTMENT, AND EXPOSE THE PRETENSIONS OF TY RANTS, AND REWARD THE HOPES OF THE DECENT AND TOLERANT, AND THAT IS THE FORCE OF HUMAN FREEDOM.
ditto, mr president!!!!
This bears repeating. Thursday, I was arguing with a younger student about what our country is, a republic or a democracy. And the instructor even hesitated. "We're a republic but vote democratically."
...arg!..
Good article.
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