The full text of President Bush’s inauguration speech can be found here. I have excerpted a few lines along with comments on why they stood out as being special and why they mean so much to me.

Americans, of all people, should never be surprised by the power of our ideals.

I have to admit that until I began listening to Dennis Prager over a dozen years ago on KABC radio here in Los Angeles, I never thought much about “ideals”. As a child of the ’60s and ’70′s, “ideals” was tantamount to being a dirty word, a set of rules or expectations that should be reviled, or at least thought of as irrelevant. I found myself as a late 30′s-something child, unwilling, up to that point, to demand of myself what my own Father had been willing to live up to at a much, much earlier age. Whether he had done so out of free will or of necessity is irrelevant, he just did what was required of him and made a life out of it. He gave to me a set of “ideals” that I abandoned of my own free will, but came back to after years of reflection and consideration prompted by Dennis’ challenges.

President Bush is right, we should not ever be surprised by the power of our ideals. Unfortunately we sometimes forget about them, or worse yet, are not taught them in the first place. Our individual challenge is to foster and promote the American Ideals of individual freedom, and the responsibilities that go hand-in-hand with same.

Our country has accepted obligations that are difficult to fulfill, and would be dishonorable to abandon.

Once again going back to my Father’s era, it is inconceivable to image our abandoning Europe in ’43 or ’44, just because the fight against the Nazi’s and Japan was tougher than we thought it would be, or because of so many thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of injured, or because of defeats such as the “Battle of the Bulge”. Our fathers were made of sterner stuff, that’s for sure. To hear the recent bleatings of the Congressional sheep over the fallen in Afghanistan and Iraq is to be ashamed. The fallen American soldier should not be considered a victim, but should be honored as a hero!

President Bush will not let our country quit in Afghanistan or in Iraq before the job is done. He will not abandon our new friends and allies for mere political gain.

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.

Many of my generation cannot get over the stain of the Vietnam war. They are still euphoric over creation of a force of activism that they believe changed “history’”. And they are right, they changed it by souring public opinion and weakening the country’s resolve in the fight against Communism in Southeast Asia. Instead of our brave soldiers of that war bleeding and dying for a just cause that turned out well, they gave their ultimate sacrifices to a lost cause, with millions of more deaths added to the toll after we abandoned the fight and refused even financial support to our allies.

President Bush will not abandon our allies, nor will he forget the sacrifices of our men and women of the armed services.

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.

The secular among us wants us to disbelieve in “evil”. A fatal mistake that is, for sure. Many of my generation, and our children, do not believe in evil as an entity, and therefore cannot understand “why” 19 men would hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings full of innocent people. They cannot understand the willingness to strap on a belt of dynamite and walk into a crowed hotel lobby or nightclub and kill oneself along with everyone else in the area. “Evil is”, and there is no misunderstanding of the meaning of “is” here. But witness the power and tenaciousness of evil we have, and now is the time to step up and fight against it.

The phrase, “to serve in a cause larger than your wants”, strikes at the heart of our narcissism. Watch TV, pick up any of our free newspapers, listen to most any popular music and you cannot get away from the self-indulgent, meaninglessness of modern popular culture. For those willing to subjugate “self” to the better good of a larger cause, many special rewards await.

Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another, and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth.

I understand this one very well. I am an adopted son. I was “unwanted” by my birth-mother. If the current societal laws had existed in 1951-52, I am certain that I would not have ever existed. I have “worth” to my wife, to my son, to my friends. None of that would have existed!

When I watched the speech this AM on the tube, I wasn’t sure of what I thought about it. It was short, succinct and to the point. After listening to it again on the radio and reading it, I conclude that it was inspired, historically important, and personally very meaningful.

God bless you George Walker Bush, and may God bless the United States of America! (db)

This entry was posted on Friday, January 21st, 2005 at 12:08 am and is filed under Focus On Politics, That's Life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.  |   Print This Post  |   Email This Post

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