State_of_the_Union

I watched US President Barack Obama's State of the Union address on Wednesday and enjoyed it very much. And I was struck by several things the President had to say, particuarly these phrases, which I jotted down (yes, I know I took notes and that is probably very strange)...

• "We admire financial success" 

• "asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes..."

• "Shared responsibility"
  

• "Clinging to rigid ideologies instead of building consensus around common sense ideas" (one of the negative ways the American people view Congress/Washington)

• "I'm a Democrat. But I believe what Republican Abraham Lincoln believed: That Government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

• "anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned, doesn't know what they're talking about."

• "our freedom endures because of the men and women in uniform who defend it."

• "our destiny is stitched together like those fifty stars and those thirteen stripes. No one built this country on their own."

and these... 

• "...an America built to last."

I find this a particularly interesting catchphrase and viewed it in two ways:

     1. When you are the world's number 1(in whatever activity you happened to be number one) it is an all out effort to stay at that position, particularly when you feel your grip on the top spot slipping.

     2.  When your raison d'etre is based upon an idea, (the passion for which has been passed down from one successful generation after the next, you have risked everything for that idea to make it work and have seen that it can spectacularly), but things are looking a bit grim, you realise that you are never really that far from needing reassurance that it is and always was a fair, noble and just idea, that it will keep on working and you won't ever give up on it.

    

• "Tyranny is no match for liberty."

Quintessentially American. You can probably find it in the bloodwork of every American. It's like genetic memory, perhaps - "a nation conceived in liberty" no less [Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address]. Liberty is that 'idea'. No matter what anyone else may think of it, it is the foundation of the Republic of the United States of America.

     A lot of people might say that in many places in the world tyranny has done and continues to do a damn fine job of being a match for liberty. I think deep in our hearts we do believe that it can be overcome - the Arab Spring has given us great hope in that regard. And we owe this belief in part to America's belief, in which tyranny in any form (and then some) will not be tolerated, and where it exists it can be overcome. She knows because she did it to the British back in 1776. A benchmark that formed and underpins the absolute belief.

    She overcame slavery. She defeated fascism. She arm-wrestled communism. She cornered terrorism. Should I mention that she is coming to grips, slowly, with the devastating effects of unfettered capitalism? All at great cost. It is an uphill-run-with-full-kit struggle to do this overcoming tyranny thing in the name of liberty, especially when it spills out and effects so many other nations; and the ideology in its purist form is threatened - battling terrorism saw her democracy suffer serious colateral damage; but she believes that liberty is the most precious possession in the world and it is a force for good.

    Cicero once wrote, 'peace is liberty in tranquility'.

    President Obama spoke with pride about his successful foreign policies and the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Bin Laden is no more; the money used for war can now be used at home.  
    But he also said that he would not tolerate Iran making nuclear weapons. And even though he did say a peaceful solution was preferable, upon hearing his resolve regarding Iran, that 'oh no not another war' feeling, even now, collapses my stomach, presses upon the heart...

    Some of that liberty in tranquility would be nice, Mr President.