Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Inaugural Speech

I was a little unimpressed.

I was troubled by his estimation that greed was somehow the reason for our difficult economic times.  He admitted that market forces have an unmatched capability to provide for us but must be reigned in so that it does not spin out of control. 

The market doesn't spin out of control, but fraud and force can and does.  It is the role of government to protect its citizens from doing harm to each other through force and fraud.  Don't blame the market because a corrupt government (of which he has been a member) does not take seriously its role to protect the right of people to engage freely and put their capital at risk.  Call it greed or whatever you want but we ALL benefit when people take risks to improve their own personal well-being.

I loved the benediction...a good vision for America in my view.

What did you guys think?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought it was a good speech but he is a good speaker so that was not a surprise to me. I can understand why people like him so much but I think the country will be filled with disappointment later on. Maybe expectations are set too high for him to really achieve the kind of success everyone wants. I liked that Rick Warren gave the invocation.

Anonymous said...

I got to watch a little known movie called Wall-E on pain of frustrated Toddler retaliation during the work day.

I'm unimpressed with the fawning by the general concensus of my FaceBook aquaintences.

Any spelling errors are again blamed on said toddler.

Gino said...

the benediction: you mean lowery, where he insulted the whole race of white people?

Esther said...

I thought, "OMG, we've become a socialist country."

Then I listened to my co-workers drool over how wonderful Obama is and how every word he speaks sounds like it comes from the mouth of God. Then I felt like vomiting.

Tracy said...

I liked the poetic nature of the benediction but you're right Gino..."white does what's right" - everyone else can all get along and be included if only the white man lets them...because he was being sort of cute and lighthearted I didn't take it as an insult but instead it sort of was a throwback to the civil rights movement...which was timely.

I'm sort of nostalgic for Harry Browne who said his first act of office would be to pardon non-violent drug offenders and empty our jails.