For those who didn’t get to see it last night, I give you Obama’s healthcare speech, in both video form and text form (after the jump). Frankly, it was better than I expected. He effectively summarized the rational for many of the most controversial reform elements, and added in enough personal stories and emotional appeals to keep it from becoming too dense with policy details. I also thought he did a fair job of criticizing some of the tactics that have been used by his opponents, while promoting cooperation. I sincerely hope that the olive branch of tort reform Obama extended last night was in good faith, and that the republicans will actually become more cooperative as a result. It would be nice if it felt like congress was actually trying to do what they thought was best for the country and not what they thought was best for their party or their political future. Hit the read link to see the full text.
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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Quotes
"We do not need to judge nearly so much as we think we do. This is the age of snap judgments. … [We need] the courage to say, ‘I don’t know. I am waiting further evidence. I must hear both sides of the question.’ It is this suspended judgment that is the supreme form of charity. Someone has said that you cannot slice cheese so fine that it doesn’t have two sides."
-Dallin H. Oaks
"It is better to debate a question without settling it, than to settle a question without debating it...The aim of argument, or of discussion, should not be victory, but progress."
-Joseph Joubert
"The more you know, the more you realise how much you don’t know — the less you know, the more you think you know."
-David Freeman
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
