By Kyle Pomerleau
When President Obama took to the stage for Monday night’s inauguration, he started by reaffirming our founding principles “That all men are created equal. That they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, and among those are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The president further asserted that “today we continue a never ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.” But, as I listened to the second inaugural speech of our president, I reflected on whether his words—many of which are grounded in American ideals—truly represented his actions while in office. Did he live up to these principles during his first term?
On some level he did. It was encouraging that the president took a step forward by mentioning the gay rights movement in his inaugural speech and giving it prominence by placing it alongside the women’s rights and civil rights movements. The fact that gay rights is part of the president’s discourse shows America is marching toward recognizing everyone’s liberty. Even more promising is that he now openly supports gay marriage.
Yet for his one step forward, there were several instances where his words did not represent his record. Rather, President Obama’s record represented a step away from the American ideals of which he spoke.
He certainly does not live up to American ideals in his foreign policy. Even as the president claims “a decade of war is now ending,” drone warfare continues in Pakistan. In fact, Obama has escalated the drone program from around 52 total strikes under President Bush to nearly 300 strikes in the past four years. Clearly this continuation of a foreign policy that Obama himself condemned at times does not adhere to the American principle of protecting life.
Nor do Obama’s words on immigration reflect his chosen policy. “Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity.” Obama in the past four years pursued a policy nothing like this. As of July 2012, more than 1.4 million people have been removed from the country—exceeding President Bush’s rate of deportation. Far from his rhetoric, Obama has decided to move farther away from our country’s ideals of allowing all people, regardless of who they are, to peacefully pursue happiness.
So I believe that we should hold Obama’s policies to the standards of his rhetoric. We should judge whether his policies, not his words, affirm the principles of America. Does continuing warfare throughout the world uphold the ideal that everyone has a right to life? Do policies that pull millions of families apart protect one’s right to the pursuit of happiness? Far from it. These policies are a shift away from American ideals. I only hope that in the next four years, his supporters will start to hold him accountable to these ideals for all people and demand progress on these important issues.