We live in the greatest country on earth, but we have to desire to keep it that way.
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The eighth and final State of the Union address, delivered by President Obama, was one that he sought to focus on pushing the United States into a new age. He focused on four main questions, but in asking those questions, he opened up hundreds more for debate. Much like starting a renovation project on your home, once you open up the wall, you can often discover many more problems behind the Sheetrock.
A president that is leaving office is given an opportunity to lay the foundation for his party.
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Just like in home renovations, you have to know what is the most necessary to get the biggest return. Certainly, you don’t build a new deck first when the bathroom floor is rotting out. President Obama approached his speech the same way; he spoke about the issues that are big not only to him, but to the overwhelming majority of American voters as well. Speaking to voters is crucial in every State of the Union, however in a presidential election year, it takes on a whole new meaning. A president that is leaving office is given an opportunity to lay the foundation for his party to retain the office.
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His first point was to remind us that everyone in our great nation should have the same “fair shot” at opportunity. With a focus on start ups and small business incentives to help build the base of an economy that he reminded us is still the strongest on the planet. He also said that he will make it one of his missions to apply pressure to corporate America, by making it “good for shareholders” if the companies were “good to their employees.” I am sure that statement left many board members a little concerned, when a president offers such a broad statement, it leaves one to wonder how much more government will be involved in the business world.
As with most of his State of the Union speeches in the past, he again addressed climate change, he again said it was settled fact, he again said we needed to do something about it. He touted solar and wind energy, and, of course, spoke about our need to move away from “dirty energy sources.” This point was made–a little awkward in my opinion–when he later touted the cheap gas that has returned under his watch.
Cutting our dependence on fossil fuels, and developing cleaner alternatives is important whether you believe in climate change or not. The issue, however, is that the decline in our production and the shutting down of oil fields today is bad for America. With greater American production, we were able to cut imports and could use that as leverage in the Middle East and elsewhere. While it is certainly great that we can drive to the Grand Canyon cheaper today than we could a year ago, the price is that thousands are out of work, and more of our oil is coming in from overseas again. The other problem is we are still a heavily coal and oil driven society, and until we aren’t, we need to be producing our energy at home.
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Regarding our involvement in foreign affairs, the President said it was important that we focus on keeping America safe without being the worlds police force. Unfortunately, under his and previous administrations, that’s exactly what we’ve done. I certainly don’t lay it all at his feet, but in the course of eight years, we are still mired in the same messes we were when he took office. Certainly the issues he’s faced have been much more complex than some would have us believe, and it seems many of the Republican candidates vying to take his job would simply prefer to carpet bomb everyone into submission. However, it has been under his watch that these problems have continued to simmer and at times boil over, and those times are what have whipped so many in this country into a Donald Trump style bloodlust.
I believe that his final point was an indirect swipe at those same Republican candidates. By stating that he wants the politics of this nation to “reflect what’s best for us, not what’s worst,” he threw down the gauntlet to Trump and others that the rhetoric and fear mongering that is being presented was not acceptable. The demonizing of entire groups of people based on their race or religion should not be what American politics are about.
Unfortunately, however, we have sat back as a nation and allowed this garbage to overtake the conversations. We have allowed loud, obnoxious blowhards to dominate our national policies. We have allowed science, medicine, humanitarian efforts, and just about any sensible progress to be road blocked by people who don’t understand or are biased against it based on some archaic religious belief system.
We as a nation are at a crossroads; we are at a point in our history that many don’t want to face. They don’t want to accept that a lot of Sheetrock has been torn out over the last eight years, and what we are discovering behind those walls is, ugly, broken and dangerous to the future of our society. We are a nation that spends too much of our time looking for demons and monsters behind every corner, and far too much effort is put into looking elsewhere to blame our faults. This speech was a stone cold reminder of that, and while, at times, it did feel as though we were being scolded by the President. One has to look past that to see that there was an enormous amount of truth and even hope in what he was saying.
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No matter what side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, you need to ask yourself that same question.
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We live in the greatest country on earth, but we have to desire to keep it that way. Unfortunately, there are too many that are more concerned about being right than they are with finding the proper solutions. While I haven’t always agreed with President Obama, I have always thought he had a proper perspective on a lot of key issues.
I am afraid that the American public has lost that perspective. There are a lot of decisions that have to be made in this nation–tough decisions that will change us in ways we couldn’t imagine. Those changes don’t have to be negative or even feared. The renovations have already started. We have a duty to make sure they are done properly; we owe it to our children not only as Americans but as citizens of the world.
One of his final statements simplified the entire speech, “Will we face the future with confidence in who we are, in what we stand for and the incredible things that we can do together?” No matter what side of the political spectrum you find yourself on, you need to ask yourself that same question. Then, ask yourself if you’re ready to put in the real dirty work.
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Photo: Flickr/ Barack Obama