Pres Obama’s Speech to the Joint Session of Congress
Well I’m a little late to the game on this one but for those of you who missed it, here’s Obama’s speech to the joint session of congress delivered tuesday night. It was a great speech, which I thought was surprisingly informative, with a fair amount of detail. He struck a more hopeful tone than he has in the past, which is probably what we need, and what we are ready for. I was surprised at how many of his statements brought the Republican legislators in the room to their feet. Of course its in the bizarre format of all Presidential speeches to congress, where everyone claps after every other sentence. If you don’t want to deal with all of that then you can just read the transcript here.
One thing that struck me during this talk, but which I’d like to develop further in the future, is how similar all of our values are in America. I think, as much as political pundits like to portray political differences as a war of values, in most cases we all have very similar basic values and goals, just different ideas about how to go about achieving those things. Obama touched on values a lot in this speech and when he was talking about those things was there really much there for any of us to disagree with? If there are some conservatives in the audience maybe they can let us know in the comments.
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March 10th, 2009 at 7:32 pm
I think our goals are much more similar than our values.
The ends don’t justify the means though and that is where the difference lies, how the sides believe the goal is best achieved, through the government or through the private sector espousing traditional family values.
March 10th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Right I think we are agreeing here. The difference is in how each side feels the goal is best achieved. The government vs the private sector is a perfect example. Though in truth both liberals and conservatives believe both are important. Unless you’re a communist or anarchist we’re really just debating what the ideal balance should be and whether government or the private sector is the better solution to a particular problem. Everyone values freedom, everyone values opportunity, everyone values liberty, community, and personal responsibility. But we often disagree on some of the underlying facts, leading to our disagreements about the best way to achieve those goals. Though I think it is valid to argue that we sometimes disagree about the relative importance of those goals.