Wednesday, February 13, 2013

State of the Union - Obama Saved the Best till Last

The New York Times full text

It has been two months since Newtown. I know this is not the first time this country has debated how to reduce gun violence. But this time is different. Overwhelming majorities of Americans – Americans who believe in the 2nd Amendment – have come together around commonsense reform – like background checks that will make it harder for criminals to get their hands on a gun. Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals. Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned. 

Each of these proposals deserves a vote in Congress. If you want to vote no, that’s your choice. But these proposals deserve a vote. Because in the two months since Newtown, more than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun. 

One of those we lost was a young girl named Hadiya Pendleton. She was 15 years old. She loved Fig Newtons and lip gloss. She was a majorette. She was so good to her friends, they all thought they were her best friend. Just three weeks ago, she was here, in Washington, with her classmates, performing for her country at my inauguration. And a week later, she was shot and killed in a Chicago park after school, just a mile away from my house. 

Hadiya’s parents, Nate and Cleo, are in this chamber tonight, along with more than two dozen Americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. They deserve a vote. 

Gabby Giffords deserves a vote. 

The families of Newtown deserve a vote. 

The families of Aurora deserve a vote. 

The families of Oak Creek, and Tucson, and Blacksburg, and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence – they deserve a simple vote. 

Our actions will not prevent every senseless act of violence in this country. Indeed, no laws, no initiatives, no administrative acts will perfectly solve all the challenges I’ve outlined tonight. But we were never sent here to be perfect. We were sent here to make what difference we can, to secure this nation, expand opportunity, and uphold our ideals through the hard, often frustrating, but absolutely necessary work of self-government.
We were sent here to look out for our fellow Americans the same way they look out for one another, every single day, usually without fanfare, all across this country. We should follow their example. 

We should follow the example of a New York City nurse named Menchu Sanchez. When Hurricane Sandy plunged her hospital into darkness, her thoughts were not with how her own home was faring – they were with the twenty precious newborns in her care and the rescue plan she devised that kept them all safe. 

We should follow the example of a North Miami woman named Desiline Victor. When she arrived at her polling place, she was told the wait to vote might be six hours. And as time ticked by, her concern was not with her tired body or aching feet, but whether folks like her would get to have their say. Hour after hour, a throng of people stayed in line in support of her. Because Desiline is 102 years old. And they erupted in cheers when she finally put on a sticker that read “I Voted.” 

We should follow the example of a police officer named Brian Murphy. When a gunman opened fire on a Sikh temple in Wisconsin, and Brian was the first to arrive, he did not consider his own safety. He fought back until help arrived, and ordered his fellow officers to protect the safety of the Americans worshiping inside – even as he lay bleeding from twelve bullet wounds. 

When asked how he did that, Brian said, “That’s just the way we’re made.” 

That’s just the way we’re made. 

We may do different jobs, and wear different uniforms, and hold different views than the person beside us. But as Americans, we all share the same proud title: 

We are citizens. It’s a word that doesn’t just describe our nationality or legal status. It describes the way we’re made. It describes what we believe. It captures the enduring idea that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations; that our rights are wrapped up in the rights of others; and that well into our third century as a nation, it remains the task of us all, as citizens of these United States, to be the authors of the next great chapter in our American story. 

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

11 comments:

  1. He failed to mention this list of children murdered by his death squads.
    http://droneswatch.org/2013/01/20/list-of-children-killed-by-drone-strikes-in-pakistan-and-yemen/

    orlin sellers

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  2. How about passing a budget, dumb ass.

    orlin sellers

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  3. He did save the best for last. We are citizens. As citizen, not subjects, we have the right to own and carry firearms, among many other rights.

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    1. The one who refers to itself as "Greg Camp",

      There are a few points that I would like to address:

      "We are citizens. As citizen not subjects"

      Citizen of what? You may reside in Arkansas, and you appear to be a subject of the fallen empire that is the United States, but you cannot possibly be obtuse enough to be a pretender to the franchise of Citizenship? You claim you are somehow "not a subject" but you have yet to present any evidence which suggests that you are not Subject to the rule of law, and that you are not Subject to the whim of the collective State.

      "we have the right to own and carry firearms"

      Are you are a State actor? A member of the today's manifestation of the "well regulated Militia" described in the Constitution? Otherwise you have no reasonable claim of a "right" to own any device which has been proliferated for the express purpose of inflicting offensive or defensive injury. Society bears the obligation and the Constitution bestows the duty upon the State to disarm the computer-trained redneck who spouts such absurd notions as "individual liberty" or "freedom of choice". Fortunately for the rest of humanity, most (sane) people recognize the inherent fallacy in such a simian mentality, and those who are afflicted with the deranged belief in "freedom" or gun-toting as a means to compensate for ones personal insecurity, are recognized as the social pariah that they are, and outcast and shunned by society they typically are excluded from further pollution of the gene pool, and confined to shout at passerby and wear bear the cardboard sign from the ignominious pulpit of the street-corner.


      Unfortunately the current politicians in your country deny you your right to disarmament.

      "among many other rights"

      The concept of rights applies strictly to a being of the collective, such as a legitimate State, and the rulers of such. It is an absurd notion that common civilians are somehow endowed with such "rights". Individual freedom manifestly infringes on your right to be governed, and therefore true liberty cannot exist without the subjugation of the individual to the whim of the State, as necessary for the benefit of the collective. The common subject has no rights in a civilized society. When a government is formed, all rights previously retained by individuals are collectivized, and left to the discretion of the State.

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    2. E.N., you are one pathetic fuck. You hide behind the safety of your computer, spouting nonsense and calling me an it. I challenge you to come out in the open. Show us who you really are. Otherwise, you're a coward.

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    3. "The common subject has no rights in a civilized society. When a government is formed, all rights previously retained by individuals are collectivized, and left to the discretion of the State."

      Spoken like a boiled meat-eating soccer queen... are you an Arsenal queer, or are the twinks from Liverpool more your style...

      Good luck with that you collectivist tit, FBI background checks for all of 2012 totaled 19.6 million, with 2.78 million background checks during the month December alone, surpassing the month of November's 2.01 million checks by 39 percent.

      So 4.78 million background checks in NOV and DEC......

      and only 800,000 police in the US.....

      Look what on pathetic little Obama loving leftist did to the entire LAPD, I mean damn, he Had them shooting up little ole ladies delivering newspapers, imagine what might happen if you pissed off those that actually understand firearms

      So you retarded little statist ass-wipes better come to surrender, because we are not gonna negotiate.

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    4. You know what? You're right. And marriage was between one man and one woman. So what's with gay marriage? No longer will I offer any moral support, oppose any online statements attacking it, speak out for it. They have the same right as anyone—to marry someone of the opposite gender. And given that all gays support raping little boys (just like all gun owners support shooting school kids), I don't think I can support them. We should do things just the way they were done 220 years ago. That's the liberal way.

      "The Heller Decision was by an activist court. It doesn't count."

      Indeed. Just like Roe v Wade was an activist decision. It doesn't count.

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  4. Yeah that would be fantastic... not gonna happen he could not get congress to pass a budget when he controlled both chambers of congress so how effective could he really be....

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  5. Nobody needs more than ten rounds, unless Brian Murphy is trying to kill you. The guy gets hit twelve times and is still fighting. Obama says the “we” in “that’s just the way we are made” means the citizens of the United States, but no, no one will ever need more than ten rounds…

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  6. Things change, we have a right to Obamacare, but not guns.

    orlin sellers

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  7. seriously, Obama? You rally had the cajones to say this: Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because they are tired of being outgunned.

    What a fucking liar. Outgunned. Let me know when the criminals have military equipment, tanks, Bradley vehicles, and drones. Cops are outgunned is a joke that is about a funny as a fart in a mitten.

    orlin sellers

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