Here are some questions I had during the "ownership" portion of President Bush's Inaugural speech on Thursday, January 20, 2005. The text of that portion of President Bush's speech is as follows:
"In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance - preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."
Here are my questions:
President Bush seems to be making a clear distinction between "Americans" and "citizens" in his speech. Is he?
What is the definitional difference (legal and otherwise) between having "Liberty" and being afforded statutory "freedom"?
What are the Liberties of a "citizen"? And, How are they the same, or different, from those pertaining to "the people"?
When a "citizen" becomes and "agent" doesn't he/she enter into a "commercial" relationship?
To whom are President Bush referring to as his "fellow Americans" who will "make", with him, "every citizen an agent" of "his or her own destiny"?
Why are President Bush's "fellow Americans" who have the power to make a "citizen" an "agent of his or her own destiny" concerned about "want and fear"?
President Bush seems to be outlining a global hierarchy in his speech. Is there a global hierarchy? If so, what is your status in this hierarchy? How do you perceive mine?
If a hierarchy exists; Do our representatives represent an 'endowed' "people" with "Liberty", or do they administrate the statutory "freedoms" dictated by those who are the most privileged within the hierarchy?
What does President Bush and his "fellow Americans" have planned for those men and women who they perceive to be "citizens" and "agents"?
What will be the fate of men and women who continue to believe themselves to be "endowed by their Creator (aka, "Nature's God") with unalienable Rights"?
To whom will President Bush be widening "the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance"? And, how will this impact the men and women who continue to believe that they have the Liberty by Divine Law to their own unaliened possession of; "homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance"?
And, per President Bush in another part of his speech; "Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave." Who then is protecting and defending the 'self-evident truths' and the "imperative" "Right" to "self-government" for the people of the endowment?