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Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Obama’s Second Inaugural



I am not sure that the Republic can survive.  It now seems beyond a reasonable doubt that Beyonce lip-synched the Star Spangled Banner.

My favorite part was:

“We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us, at any time, may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other – through Medicare, and Medicaid, and Social Security – these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us.  They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.
We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.”

That is a nice statement of the liberal position on the “expanded safety net” and our communal commitment to provide those worthwhile (and expensive) things to each other.  I support it.  Those benefits cover all of us, including the much courted middle class.  Now, how do you keep this vision of “communal commitments” from being just a nice cover story for “the people voting themselves money out of the public treasury?”  I read on in order to find out about how he would handle the call on us to sacrifice to meet the other half of this enormous obligation to the community.   

It never came.  Mr. Obama’s commitment to community centers on distribution not responsibility.

The thing that I liked least about the speech was that:

If you look through it you will find numerous tributes to the community, but very few to the individual.

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