Thought it wise to post up President Bush's Second Inaugural Address January 2005 in full, to use as a tick list. Came from a Libertarian Girl link. She has also, interestingly, posted a link to Abraham Lincoln's Second Inaugural Adress, Saturday, Match 4 , 1865, where he debates the Civil War, still ongoing. She herself briefly puts us right on the causes of the American Civil War.

The Bartleby site has all the Presidental Inaugural Speeches from G Washington onwards: Inaugural Addresses of Presidents of the United States - George Washington to George W Bush .


Searching for some philospher's (any thinking person's) views on freedom to set against George W Bush's analysis: the mini-essay on Sartre (courtesy of Brandeis University) within this biography/comprehensive bibliography, is a brief intro. to what someone says Sartre thinks freedom is. Well, he changes his tune slighty as he goes along. It is interesting because of the context: WWII, Les Evenements of '68, Vietnam, Cold War, et al. You can always learn something from history.

Probably because the BBC did a wonderful adaptation of the Roads to Freedom, [check Brandeis on Sartre] which I watched as a relatively young man, into my mind pops the spirit of cynicism that embued the defeated French. Also, the strangeness - an example only - of later discovered involvement of Mitterand in the Vichy govt. Resisting my usual segue in to thesis on "Who can you trust anyway?". Promises made in political speeches are usually forgotten pretty quickly by contemporaries. A week is a long time in politics.

I'll find a selection of other views on freedom from as wide a range of people as possible, so that it is all conveniently close to Bush's speech for instant comparison as the weeks, months, years (4) go on.

Soon occured to me - minutes later -that Wikipedia would give a good overview (hopefully some expert has been monitoring this page) so here: freedom, in all its glory.

It is always best to admit one's ignorance and go back to basics: which means in the great tradition of enlightenment values, rather than dubious Bible exegesis.

There is a corollary to this thought on Norfolkskies
  ¶ Monday, January 24, 2005