Posted on 05/25/2016 2:00:39 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In an address to the people of communist-ruled Vietnam on Tuesday, President Obama made a case for the importance of upholding human rights, prefacing it by saying that the United States, too, “is still striving to live up to our founding ideals.”
“No nation is perfect,” he said at the National Convention Center in Hanoi. “Two centuries on, the United States is still trying to striving to live up to our founding ideals.”
“We still deal with our shortcomings – too much money in politics, and rising economic inequality,” Obama continued. “Racial bias in our criminal justice system. Women still not being paid as much as men doing the same job. We still have problems and we’re not immune from criticism – I promise you, I hear it every day.”
“But that scrutiny, that open debate, confronting our imperfections and allowing everybody to have their say has helped us grow stronger and more prosperous and more just.”
(VIDEO-AT-LINK)
He assured his audience that he was not singling out Vietnam, and that the U.S. does not seek to impose its form of government on the country. Ultimately Vietnam would decide its own future, he said, noting that Vietnam and the U.S. have different political systems, traditions and cultures.
Obama went on to argue that rights to unrestricted access to the Internet fuel innovation that economies need to thrive.
He also stressed the importance of freedom of religion, assembly and the press.
“When journalists and bloggers are able to shine a light on injustice or abuse, that holds officials accountable and builds public confidence that the system works,” he said.
“When candidates can run for office and campaign freely, and voters can choose their own leaders in free and fair elections, it makes countries more stable because citizens know that their voices count and that peaceful change is possible, and it brings new people into the system.”
Obama was speaking two days after Vietnamese went to the polls to choose legislative representatives from vetted candidates. Their leaders – the president, prime minister and the holder of the top post, that of general secretary of the Communist Party – were appointed at a party congress last January which also selected the most powerful political bodies, the Politburo and Central Committee.
U.S. lawmakers who called on Obama ahead of his visit to raise human rights concerns included in their appeal a list of more than 100 imprisoned activists, journalists and bloggers.
Obama’s audience, included officials and young people, sat in silence during human rights portion of the speech, applauding just once when Obama mentioned the fact that rights are referred to in the Vietnamese constitution.
In contrast, other parts of the address, such as his veiled criticism of the way China is pursuing its territorial claims in the disputed waters and islands of the South China Sea, drew enthusiastic applause.
According to the State Department’s latest human rights report, Vietnam is “an authoritarian state ruled by a single party.”
During the period covered in the report, 2014, the department recorded instances of “arbitrary and unlawful deprivation of life; police attacks and corporal punishment; arbitrary arrest and detention for political activities; continued police mistreatment of suspects during arrest and detention, including the use of lethal force and austere prison conditions; and denial of the right to a fair and expeditious trial.”
Obama is a true POS.
I cannot f*cking STAND this guy. I swear, he must stay up late at night thinking about what to say the next day to piss off average Americans.
I am with you. Hard to believe he can have that effect, but...yes.
Every Nam Vet should go to the White Hut when he gets back and just stare...continuously, until this rat is out of office.
We should have picked our own cotton.
>>“We still deal with our shortcomings – too much money in politics, and rising economic inequality,” Obama continued. “Racial bias in our criminal justice system. Women still not being paid as much as men doing the same job. We still have problems and we’re not immune from criticism – I promise you, I hear it every day.”
He should have posed sitting on the barrel of an anti-aircraft gun. Better yet, he should have posed with that barrel stuck up his butt!
Most of his rhetoric just pisses me off, but to go to a former enemy nation, which is communist, and to spew these lies that form the basis of all communist propaganda is just beyond the pale.
Obama: Yeah, Americans still suck. I did what I could.
If you talk down the company you work for while on the job, you usually get a trip to HR.
How absolutely insulting to the Max! An apparent illegal alien foreign enemy agent infiltrates it seems ( since he’s locked up both his birth and immigration records) — gets into our WH despite his obvious lack of qualifications for the office - and proceeds to undermine insult weaken and sabotage our country — and now goes to communist Viet nam where he uses the occasion to again insult America and lecture us about “our” ideals -— which he so patently does not share — and as if he were somehow magically transformed into one of “us” Americans. Sorry, but that’s a super- sick dog that won’t hunt. May be gth, or just back to Kenya and/ or Indonesia and/ or Pakistan —,-ASAP!
Mr. Obama, American ideals are not forced “equality” - which is totalitarian socialism which you, Mr. Obama, have advanced. Those NOT American ideals.
American ideals are freedom and the rule of law under the Constitution which you Mr. Obama, have ignored.
When it comes to American ideals Mr. Obama, you are a big part of the problem and not at all part of the solution.
Marxism and Islam are our founding ideals? Wow, have I been teleported to an alternate universe?
That's what our founding ideals were trying to address?
FUBO
Ya know, the US was founded upon islam.
Obama could illustrate that the U.S. is always working to live up to our founders ideals. But no. He throws his own country under the bus.
Even worse. He is the CEO of the company.
He is talking to a communist about “Our Founding Ideals” so I assume barry sorto is talking about founding communist ideals.
What a damn idiot to criticize his own country in front of a communist nation.
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