Bush promotes liberty, character in inaugural speech
- Jan 31, 2005
President Bush promised the United States would back the spread of freedom throughout the world even as he urged a strengthening of American character as a product of such liberty in his second inaugural speech Jan. 20.
After being sworn in for a second term, Bush said this country’s “vital interests and our deepest beliefs” are united in the cause of freedom. “The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands,” he said. “The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.”
Speaking for only 21 minutes, the President said American policy is “to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world. All who live in tyranny and hopelessness can know—the United States will not ignore your oppression or excuse your oppressors. When you stand for your liberty, we will stand with you.”
Bush told America’s young people, “Make the choice to serve in a cause larger than your wants, larger than yourself. And in your days you will add not just to the wealth of our country but to its character.”
The exercise of freedom should be marked by service and mercy, especially toward the weak, he said. “Americans, at our best, value the life we see in one another and must always remember that even the unwanted have worth. And our country must abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time.”
ERLC President Richard Land, who was in the audience for the ceremony, called it “a great speech that reaffirmed the timeless verities of the American people—that freedom is the God-given right of every human being and that America is the hope for freedom-loving people all over the world. And I’m sure that there are people who live in servitude and degradation and oppression around the world who will be encouraged and given renewed hope by President Bush’s proclamation that when they stand for freedom they have a friend in the United States of America.”
The text of the speech is available online at http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/01/20050120-1.html .
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