from bush's second inaugural address

"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." do you really believe that, mr. president? i am glad to hear it. i worry sometimes, mr. president, when i hear you talk about evil people, when i read your angry sounding words against osama bin laden or sadam Hussein. i don't understand, if we as a country believe in the intrinsic value of every life, how you put so many prisoners to death when you were in charge of texas. i don't understand why we are the only developed country, in fact the only country besides Somalia, i believe, who won't sign the Children's Bill of Rights. "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." mr. president, i am so glad to hear you say this. so many other presidents have tried to push our form of government on any little country that came along, because we have the only right form of government, and the rest of the world should be like us. i hope you hold these ideals up for our own country as well. with only a little more than half of our citizens voting, we don't seem to care much about being active in our freedom. i'm not sure how protection of minorities works, but i know the bulk of the minorities who work in the sears tower are assistants to white males. yes, there are white males on the cleaning staff, however they are all eastern European immigrants. "we will persistently clarify the 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." i am so glad you want to keep our country bully-free, mr. president. i am so glad that our military will not be bullying prisoners anymore. i am glad to hear the jailed dissidents in guantanamo bay will have fair trials. i am glad to hear that megacorparations will not be running the country, that monopolies will be addressed, and that individuals' voices will be heard. you are speaking about our country, aren't you mr. president? i hope this message is not just for women in burquas! "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." mr. president, are you talking to just the 2 countries left who support us in iraq? or do you have a bigger vision of our allies? i am so glad to hear that communication is important to us as a country. sometimes i feel like we just stomp all over the world without taking into consideration anything any other country says or feels. i am glad to know that friendship and counsel of other countries is important to us, that we acknowledge our dependence on others. this is not the american way, to say we need help, and are not independent. to be honest, mr. president, i don't see this one really happening. but i'll be keeping my eyes peeled while reading the newspaper, because i really want it to. "In america's ideals of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence." i am so glad you are going to stop people from laboring on the edge of subsistence, mr. president! does this mean that you will raise the minimum wage to more than $5.15 an hour? that a single mother will be able to earn enough working full time to pay for a 2 bedroom apartment for her family? does this mean that there will be housing for all in chicago, that you will make sure there is a place for all the people who have moved out of the projects that are being knocked down, with the new housing not yet built? will higher education be available to anyone intelligent enough, not just whoever can afford it? mr. president, if this is one of your goals for the next four years, i give you great hope. "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." i must admit, mr. president, that i don't understand this statement very well. i'm not convinced that ideals of justice and conduct are always the same. i certainly don't think our past is full of good and true things. i hope you mean we should just reaffirm the things that were good and true. i'm glad that you want to find ideals of justice and conduct that hold up, though. i hope you don't think ideals of justice and conduct are the same for every person, culture and religion. "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." you know, mr. president, i could talk to you more about the poor here, but i think, as my last quote, i'm going to tell you how this makes me feel personally. you can't possibly know how relieved this makes me feel, mr. president, because as a lesbian i get pretty nervous when i hear you talking about the sanctity of marriage and the need for an amendment to the constitution. i'm glad to live in chicago, mr. president, because in this country there are places where it is illegal for me to make love, and where it is legal for me to be turned out of an apartment, or fired from my job, because of my lover. i'm sure you know, mr. president, that homosexuals can't donate blood, and there are places where children are put in foster care rather than be adopted by people like me. i would say in this country there are lots of citizens who are not at their best. i think that racism is a habit we definitely need to abandon, but there are a few other isms we need to work on too. maybe i'm being a pessimist, mr. president, but when you said at the end of your speech, "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 country, proclaims liberty throughout all the world and to all the inhabitants thereof," it made me a bit nervous. because the story i remember about the liberty bell was that it cracked when it rang, and was never rung again. i think this illustration does not bode well for our future. but you said some nice things, mr. president, and i hope the next four years show us that you really do stand by what you say.