The President's Inaugural Address January 21, 2013

As 
Prepared for Delivery –
Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, Members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:
Each time we gather to inaugurate a president, we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.  We affirm the promise of our democracy.  We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.  What makes us exceptional – what makes us American – is our allegiance to an idea, articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
Today we continue a never-ending journey, to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.  For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they have never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a Republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.
For more than two hundred years, we have.
Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free.  We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.
Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce; schools and colleges to train our workers.
Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.
Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.
Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.  Our celebration of initiative and enterprise; our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, are constants in our character.
But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.  For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.  No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.  Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.
This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience.  A decade of war is now ending.  An economic recovery has begun.  America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands:  youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.   My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it – so long as we seize it together.

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.  We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.  We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.  We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American, she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.
We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time.  We must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, and reach higher.  But while the means will change, our purpose endures:  a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American.  That is what this moment requires.  That is what will give real meaning to our creed.
We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.  We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.  But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty, and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.  We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.  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.  We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms.  The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it.  We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise.  That is how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks.  That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.  That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.  Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage.  Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty.  The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm.  But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war, who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends, and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.
We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law.  We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully – not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.  America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe; and we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation.  We will support democracy from Asia to Africa; from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom.  And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice – not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes:  tolerance and opportunity; human dignity and justice.
We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began.  For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.  Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.  Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.  Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for, and cherished, and always safe from harm.
That is our generation’s task – to make these words, these rights, these values – of Life, and Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness – real for every American.  Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness.  Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time – but it does require us to act in our time.
For now decisions are upon us, and we cannot afford delay.  We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.  We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.  We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial, and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years, and forty years, and four hundred years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.
My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction – and we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service.  But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty, or an immigrant realizes her dream.  My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride.
They are the words of citizens, and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.
You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time – not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.
Let each of us now embrace, with solemn duty and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright.  With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history, and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.
Thank you, God Bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.

Presidential Memoranda Signed January 16, 2013

Mark Wilson/Getty Images

 Much has been made of the President signing twenty-three Executive Orders on gun control.  In reality, he directed twenty-three executive actions be undertaken which including signing three executive memoranda. Here is a list of the twenty-three actions and below them links to the actual memoranda signed by the President.  None of these actions take guns away from sane gun owners.

Executive actions

• Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal agencies to make relevant data available to the federal background check system.
• Addressing unnecessary legal barriers, particularly relating to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, that may prevent states from making information available to the background check system.
• Improving incentives for states to share information with the background check system.
• Directing the attorney general to review categories of individuals prohibited from having a gun to make sure dangerous people are not slipping through the cracks.
• Proposing a rule making to give law enforcement authorities the ability to run a full background check on an individual before returning a seized gun.
• Publishing a letter from the A.T.F. to federally licensed gun dealers providing guidance on how to run background checks for private sellers.
• Starting a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign.
• Reviewing safety standards for gun locks and gun safes (Consumer Product Safety Commission).
• Issuing a presidential memorandum to require federal law enforcement to trace guns recovered in criminal investigations.
• Releasing a report analyzing information on lost and stolen guns and making it widely available to law enforcement authorities.
• Nominating an A.T.F. director.
• Providing law enforcement authorities, first responders and school officials with proper training for armed attacks situations.
• Maximizing enforcement efforts to prevent gun violence and prosecute gun crime.
• Issuing a presidential memorandum directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to research gun violence.
• Directing the attorney general to issue a report on the availability and most effective use of new gun safety technologies and challenging the private sector to develop innovative technologies.
• Clarify that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors asking their patients about guns in their homes.
• Releasing a letter to health care providers clarifying that no federal law prohibits them from reporting threats of violence to law enforcement authorities.
• Providing incentives for schools to hire school resource officers.
• Developing model emergency response plans for schools, houses of worship and institutions of higher education.
• Releasing a letter to state health officials clarifying the scope of mental health services that Medicaid plans must cover.
• Finalizing regulations clarifying essential health benefits and parity requirements within insurance exchanges.
• Committing to finalizing mental health parity regulations.
• Starting a national dialogue on mental health led by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, and Arne Duncan, the secretary of education. 

Presidential Memorandum -- Tracing of Firearms in Connection with Criminal Investigations | The White House

Presidential Memorandum -- Improving Availability of Relevant Executive Branch Records to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System | The White House

Presidential Memorandum -- Engaging in Public Health Research on the Causes and Prevention of Gun Violence | The White House

Palin and My Family

Sarah Palin reminds me of too many members of my family who never take responsibility.  One recently quit his job because he was told to take a training course in something he thought he already knew.  When he had difficulty finding another job,  his excuse for quitting became "The company wanted to get rid of me, but I beat them to the punch."   Sarah Palin in her comments on the Tucson shootings did the same thing, to paraphrase: "Me, little me, I did nothing wrong,  It's just the mean old Democrats and media picking on little me."

I think that Sarah Palin scares me because I do see her actions reflected in those of certain members of my family including my long-dead  paternal grandfather who blighted the lives of his children.  Those members of my family like her carry a constant chip on their shoulder.  They are always being picked on in their minds, even though everyone else is simply reacting to their reprehensible behavior, in my grandfather's case drunkenness and debauchery.  These are the bullies of the family, bossing everyone around, berating their mothers for imagined wrongs, yelling at the autistic cousin.  They are always angry.  Suggestions as to appropriate behavior no matter how gently offered result in adult temper tantrums. Most no longer participate in family get-togethers because "no one likes them."  The truth is the family has tried numerous times to include them, but too often their bullying behavior leads to tears and anger.  I do not want a Presidential candidate like that.

I want a President that can admit mistakes and own up to their bad behavior.  Most of all, I do not want a President that always blames someone else.  I do not want a President who thinks "The Devil made me do it."

Barack Obama: Closeted Non-Believer?

The title of this entry comes from a Huffington Post blog by Ali R. Rizvi.  To read it click on the title. I do not agree with the author. I believe President Obama is a man of faith and I do believe that matters.  I take President Barack Obama at his word; he is a Christian.

His 2004 interview about his faith is being used by fundamentalists and evangelicals to discredit his beliefs.  President Obama did not use code words such as "born-again" and "the Bible is the Word of God."  His failure to use the code and familiar references means that fundamentalists and evangelicals do not believe he is one of them, a Christian.

The problem, of course, is that President Obama is neither a fundamentalist nor an evangelical Christian.  Just as I am not one, even though  I was baptized in a Southern Baptist Church and am an ordained deacon in a church affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention.  Neither of us approaches faith from the believe it or leave it approach. Neither are we non-believers.

In President Obama's 2004 interview, I recognize an intellectual approach to Christianity that is scorned by fundamentalist Christians.  I grew up in a traditional Southern Baptist Church and was baptized at the age of 11.  I believe that I committed as much as I could at that time to Jesus Christ.  At 13, I left, pushed out by the refusal of adults to answer questions and my mother's insanity.  When Mom had her first psychotic break, the church blamed her and did not reach out to help.  Former church friends disappeared.  The minister did not visit.  The church made her insanity my mother's fault.  I would come to learn that Mom was schizophrenic, not exactly something she could prevent.  I returned to the church at the age of 28.  In those years between, I studied many faiths and through the writings of C.S. Lewis, Dorothy Sayers, and others found the intellectual basis for my faith and in the church the community of Christians I needed.

I found that Christianity is as much an intellectual challenge as one of faith.  Fundamentalists make all the issues depend on the Bible.  Yet, fundamentalists tell you that your personal relationship with Christ is all important.  That personal relationship is key for me.  Because I am over-educated, I approached my search for faith from an intellectual viewpoint.  I wanted questions answered, not brushed off.  I found that my questions were often answered with another question, but they were never brushed off.  Great minds have struggled with the meaning of Christianity for two thousand years. That does not mean I believe that an intellectual approach is the only way to true faith.  I believe there are many approaches to faith, all valid.

Baptist believe in the priesthood of the believer which means we can each have a direct relationship with God.  We do not need a minister or priest to intercede with or to bring us to God.  I fully embrace that philosophy.  I may not have all the answers, just as President Obama does not supply pat answers about his faith, but I know that God is real.  That his truest representation is in Jesus Christ. That I can have a personal relationship with God.   I know the God I worship is Love in its purest sense.  Love that does not care what you call her.

President Obama on the View

President Obama was on the View today, July 29, 2010.  I have not watched the show in weeks because I find the celebrity interviews inane and a waste of my time.  The show is now heading into a month of reruns designed, I suppose, to bore more viewers.

The President's appearance was an intelligent diversion.  President Obama answered question articulately and with the appropriate amount of gravitas. Elizabeth, representing Republicans, asked some good questions despite the party line prefaces.  It is time the American people wake up and realize how much worse the economy would be if Republicans were in control.

Some commentators criticized the President for going on The View.  Why?  I believe there were two real reasons for the criticism that were not voiced. First the audience for this show is primarily women.  Saying that the President degrades the office by going on the show, says that this audience  should be ignored because they do not represent the class of voters the President should talk to.  Demographically, women are the majority.  They deserve to hear from their President.  Second, the women on The View are not journalists (except for Barbara Walters) How can they ask intelligent questions?    Most Americans are not journalists.  They deserve to have their questions answered.

Except for some silly current events questions that were a waste of time, most of the questions were appropriate  Everyday people deserve the President's time.  I say, "Good going, Mr. President."

Joe Wilson, Barack Obama and the South

I am a sixth generation Texan. Born into a family that was steeped in the Southern tradition of bigotry and faith, a very strange combination. Love God, but not your fellow man.

I was saved from that narrow minded racial hatred by a mother who threw off the beliefs of her childhood and a Yankee grandmother who saw everyone as a friend. I have come home as a child to play with a Navajo boy whose mother my mother befriended. I have come home to a houseful of Buddhists cooking on our stove because theirs had quit and my grandmother opened our kitchen to them. (The ashram was across the street.) I have come home to find the welfare mother next door being taught to cook by my grandmother. I have come home to be invited to the birth of our next door neighbor's child in their front bedroom.

From my mother and my grandmother, I learned that everyone is a neighbor and to follow Christ's command to love God and love your neighbor as yourself. I am so grateful for that lesson. That does not mean I like everyone. No race has a corner on good or evil. I know I can encounter saints or devils in any color.

Wednesday evening, I watched President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. When he was interrupted by a rude outburst, I caught the Southern accent. I knew that Southern bigotry had struck again.

Later, the press announced the name of the Southerner, Joe Wilson. I do not know much about this man except that he is a Congressman and comes from South Carolina. I doubt that he is an overt racist. I doubt that he believes he has any problem with race. Yet, he chose to interrupt a speech of the first black President of the United States. I believe that he is heir to the deep racial bigotry that still eats at the heart of the South. Hidden now, but perhaps more virulent.

Racism still lingers just below the surface of every day interactions between Southerners. This racism is not conscious, but ingrained, characterized by racial jokes and casual slurs. The subtle assumption from the past that blacks are not capable of intellectual activity still lingers. A black quarterback at the University of Texas led to whispers and suggestions that he had a lot of white in him. This racism rises from the great need of human beings to have someone to look down on, someone to feel superior to, someone to make their condition seem less barren.

In the South, poor whites were duped into hating blacks by a white ruling class that played the need for superiority for all it was worth. This racism had the desired result. Poor whites voted with rich whites instead of with poor blacks. In many cases, poor whites voted against their own interests rather than share a common cause with blacks.

The Republicans use this racial tactic today. Health care is a perfect example. Here illegal immigrants become the target of hatred and fear. Many whites would rather have health care reform defeated than chance that some illegal immigrant would game the system and receive medical care. They would continue a system that limits access to health insurance (preexisting condition means denial of insurance), limits payments (maximum amount of payments capped), and denies medical treatment on technicalities.

What would Jesus say to us about the sick child of an illegal immigrant? Let them die? Or heal them? Who is our neighbor?

There is an amazing mentality even among well educated Southerners. I have had graduate degreed friends tell me that slavery was not that bad, that as a whole the system was good for blacks. They will concede to individual cases of extreme cruelty and excess, but tell you on the whole slaves were well taken care of and had little worries because food and shelter were provided. Of course, when I ask if they would like to be a slave, the answer is no. I wonder what Joe Wilson thinks about slavery?

Many Southerners are ready to refight the Civil War. Not militarily, but politically. Republicans cling to the issues that divided the country, race and wealth. Then race concerned the civil rights of blacks and wealth the riches derived from black labor. Now, race deals with denying access to upward mobility for minorities so that wealth can be accumulated from the fruits of their low wage work. Again, illegal immigrants show the hypocrisy. Deny illegals benefits, but live in the houses they build for less than minimum wage or eat at a restaurant whose prices are low because the kitchen staff consists of illegal immigrants paid a pittance.

When southern Republicans are afraid of losing an election, they play the race card. Not overtly, but with great skill. Just as in the days after Reconstruction, they scare poor whites with the image of their black or brown neighbors as the other, as different, as someone who wishes to take from them, as someone who has suspect values and a desire for a different America. The image of President Obama as a foreigner is an example of this gambit.

Southern Republicans will make outrageous statements to rally those that fear the federal government. Governor Perry stated that Texas should secede from the United States because the federal government was taking over everything. People believe such outrageous statements because for years they have been fed the idea that centralized help is evil. Only a state is fit to look after its citizens.

Too many Southerners live in world created not by fact, but by their desires, desires articulated by right wing commentators, politicians and ministers. They live in a world that does not exist, but is real to them. In their world, President Obama is part of a Muslim plot to destroy the United States. His health plan is just another step in Muslim plan to control everyone in the United States. Their world makes them very afraid. Their fear makes them vulnerable to the demagogues of the right. Their fear may truly threaten this nation.

We must remember the angels message at the coming of Christ: "Fear not."

Health Rationing

Let's talk health rationing. That is how conservatives are trying to scare the public about health reform. What the conservatives neglect to mention is the health rationing that they approve of, the system we have now.

The system we have now rations on the ability to pay. I am a perfect example. I have several pre-existing conditions that keep me from getting health insurance except in the state health risk pool. There I pay $807/mo for a policy that has a $2500 deductible and a separate $3000 co-pay. The result is all I have is catastrophic coverage. Oh, I have a low income thanks to the economic down turn.

My insurance has another fabulous provision. If you try to commit suicide, there is no coverage. That means if you survive your suicide attempt, then you are left with all the medical charges: ambulance, emergency room, etc. So when you return home, you are inundated by bill collectors. If you weren't depressed to start with, you will be afterward. I think the insurance pool is telling you not to attempt suicide, but just do it right and die.

Back to rationing. I have a bad knee right now. I actually pushed something solid back into place under the knee cap a couple of weeks ago. I have no money, so I cannot go to the doctor because I can't pay for an office visit and X-rays. The pain has been so bad that it makes me nauseous. Luckily, the knee is slowly improving. I just have to be sure not to bend it going up or down steps.

In addition to my knee pain, my blood pressure is dropping. I stopped taking one of my medications that lowers it. This has stabilized my blood pressure although occasionally it really drops. My heart rate is slowing, too. I should go to my doctor, but, guess what, no money. I will wait until I cannot function. I know from a previous diagnosis that there is a finite chance that the nerve from my brain to my heart is being compressed interrupting the signals to my heart. I certainly don't have money for tests or to see a neurologist. I struggle on hoping my finances improve to the point where I can seek medical care. No money, no medical care. This is rationing.

How many people are like me? How many have insurance that is almost worthless? How many have none? None of us can afford our system. The President of the AMA, J. James Rohack, agrees we have health care rationing now.

People without insurance and those like me plug along until we land in the emergency room or dead. You'll ask why do I bother with insurance? Because the insurance company has negotiated a lower pay rate with doctors and hospitals, so I pay much less than I would without insurance. Of course, when you are broke most of the time, you can't do much.

This system does have an advantage for Republics. Lower income voters tend to vote Democratic. A system that supplies less medical care to the poor and low income increases their death rate. This removes these people and their votes for Democrats. No wonder Republics want to maintain the status quo.

Photo by soopahgrover