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January 31, 2006
State of the Union - First Reaction
For whatever it is worth, this is my very preliminary reaction after listening to President Bush's State of the Union Speech. I will be reading and studying it over the next day or two and may have more to say.
The speech had two sections, quite different in style and tone. The first was an impassioned plea for rejection of the position of a strawman: isolationism. As far as I can tell there are virtually no isolationists in either party, so I'm not at all sure what he was attacking.
The second was the usual shopping list of desires, programs and initiatives that so often take up most of these affairs. If I really trusted him, there were many I could support: funding alternate fuel sources, math and science education, a bipartisan look at Social Security and Medicare. There were a few that I found basically morally deficient: domestic spying, the absolute and unqualified prohibition on certain types of research and continuing to destroy the progressive tax system. This last item he approached in the name of making tax cuts for the wealthy permanent. And there were a few that I simply didn't understand. I may have more on some of these later. But I would like to briefly address two items from his speech below.
He was correct that we cannot cut and run from Iraq. But I believe that admitting our moral failing in attacking that country is part of the strategy of fighting terrorism and eventually winning the freedom for the Iraqi people that the President claims he desires. Right now Iraq is the best recruiting tool the terrorist have and we need to find a way to take it away from them and soon.
I would also note that while, if memory serves me correctly, he referred to "pure research" or some words to that effect, what he actually outlined was technology development. While encouraging technology development is praiseworthy and useful for near term prosperity, the only way to insure long term prosperity is to encourage pure research in those areas that have little or no obvious economic value. Without pure research, our ability to strengthen our scientific community and be competitive down the road will evaporate before our eyes.
I will be reading and thinking about the President's remarks and I encourage you, regardless of party or opinion to read the speech after the enthusiasm or depression of the moment has died and test his remarks against everything else that is out there to read and learn from.
Posted by Duane Smith at January 31, 2006 8:04 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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