Or this:
Bush's 'Freedom Speech' Had a Long Pedigree
By GEORGE MELLOAN
WSJ; January 25, 2005; Page A17
online.wsj.com
George W. Bush told his speechwriters he wanted his second inaugural address to be about "freedom." It was. He used the word 24 times by one count. His eloquent and idealistic address is now being described as his "freedom speech."
"Freedom speeches" are no novelty in American politics. They predate U.S. independence, as when Patrick Henry proposed that the Virginia militia rise up against British rule with those words once known to every schoolchild in America, "Give me liberty or give me death."
America is properly identified by peoples around the world as the "freedom" nation, a place where immigrants can shuck off the customs or class strictures that kept them down back home. Some critics worried that Mr. Bush went too far in stretching out his hand to oppressed peoples and promising that "when you stand for your liberty we will stand with you." What does he do when Chinese dissidents ask his support for their fight for political freedom? Wasn't it that kind of promise by John F. Kennedy that got us into Vietnam? How can you conduct sensible global politics while you are taking such an expansive view of American political interests?
Those are the kinds of questions professional diplomats ask as they try to limit U.S. commitments in the world of realpolitik. They know that a lot of American blood has been spilled to make good on promises to the oppressed. By broad estimate, more then a half million American soldiers have died throughout U.S. history -- including 140,415 on the Union side in the Civil War -- in the cause of "freedom."
Whether that legitimately can be said of the 53,313 lost in World War I might be debated, but surely Kaiser Wilhelm didn't invade France and Belgium to spread freedom. President Woodrow Wilson, in arguing for U.S. entry into that awful war, once again invoked the American ideal. He told Congress, as noted by biographer August Heckscher: "We are glad . . . to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German people included. . . . The world must be made safe for democracy." As it turned out, the world was not made safer, but the ideal survived postwar cynicism and was vigorously applied by the U.S. in the second round that began in 1939.
The idea of individual freedom clearly has enormous political potency. The early American colonists braved the hardships of the new world to escape the oppression of European monarchs and their allied clerics. Europe's "noble" families scoffed at democracy as "mobocracy," seeing it as a threat to their unbounded privileges. But democracy and meritocracy took root on the wild frontier, far from Europe's palaces. The exigencies of frontier life and the melding of cultures fostered tolerance and accommodation and the need for a rule of law.
The efforts of George III to bring these colonial individualists under control by taxing them and usurping their property rights touched off the American Revolution. George Washington was a wealthy planter, not a sansculotte French revolutionary. According to biographer Joseph J. Ellis ("His Excellency," Alfred A. Knopf), Washington set his face against the crown when British nobles tried to deprive him of valuable Ohio Valley land he had earned leading the Virginia militia against the French and Indians on Britain's behalf. His fallback plan if he lost the war was to take the remains of his army to the Ohio valley and tackle the British with Indian-style warfare if they dared come after him.
Historian Ellis, in an earlier book, "The Founding Brothers," marvels at the way the strong personalities who shaped and held together the infant federal government reconciled the strongly differing views that divided them, in simplest terms, into the populist Jeffersonian and federalist Hamiltonian camps.
That the revolution didn't devour its children as the French revolution did is explained by the fact that the small group of founders had formed a bond that couldn't be broken by vigorous dispute. That tradition of peaceful debate was reflected in the friendly mixing of political adversaries at the Bush inauguration. Also, as freeborn colonials with no pretensions to lordly powers they debated each other as equals.
Foremost, the founders were skillful politicians. So is Mr. Bush, judging from his success in selling bold ideas to the people and Congress. The freedom speech dealt with domestic as well as foreign policy. His "ownership society" programs, including Social Security and tax reform, will be advanced as measures to liberate citizens from dependency on government. Lyndon B. Johnson used similar rhetoric when he brought forth the Civil Rights Act of 1964, pointing out that "Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom" and that hence racial discrimination is unjust to American patriots.
The American willingness to fight genuine wars of liberation is the bedrock of its foreign policy. Harry Truman launched the Cold War at his 1949 inaugural, declaring that "the American people desire and are determined to work for a world in which all nations and all people are free to govern themselves as they see fit and achieve a decent and satisfying life." The Truman Doctrine led to some hard times, such as the three-year Korean War. But it mobilized America for a necessary struggle against tyranny.
Kennedy sounded a similar theme as the U.S. became more deeply involved in fighting communism in Vietnam, another unhappy experience. But Ronald Reagan nonetheless broadened the theme after viewing the horrendous Berlin wall, saying "the quest for freedom is the birthright of all humanity." As we all know, political freedom ultimately prevailed over communism.
Mr. Bush addresses what is likely to be another long struggle, this time against the fanaticism fanned by a small group of Muslim clerics. Next Sunday, Iraqis, with U.S. backing, will vote to select a national assembly, the beginning of an experiment in self-government rare in the Arab world. Fanatics will try to destroy that effort. But if the Iraqi vote runs true to form, it will give democracy a foothold in Iraq and once again vindicate Reagan's assertion that freedom is the "birthright of all humanity." |
