Fellow citizens, today I stand here before you with humility, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well the generosity and cooperation he has shown during this transition.
Forty Americans have taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the waters of peace. Furthermore, the oath is taken under a sky full of clouds and raging storms. In these moments, America goes not just for the skill or the vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our ancestors, and true to our founding documents . So it was. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is severely weakened as a result of greed and irresponsibility of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new era. Homes have been lost, cut jobs, closed business. Our health care is too expensive, our schools fail too many, and every day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy and strengthen our adversaries threatening our planet.
These are indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but equally profound is the sapping of confidence in our land: the nagging fear that the decline is inevitable, and that the next generation should lower its sights. Today I say that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be won easily or in a short period of time. But know this, America will be met. On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose on the conflict and discord. On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, which for too long have strangled our policy.
remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to put aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit, to choose our better history, to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to fully achieve their happiness.
In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never taken for granted. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or rebates. It was not a path for the faint of heart, for those who prefer leisure to work, or seek only the pleasures of wealth and fame. E 'was instead the path of those who take risks, of doers, the makers of things: some celebrated but more often men and women in their obscure efforts that have brought us to the top of a long and difficult path towards prosperity and freedom.
For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and traveled across the oceans in search of a new life.
We have toiled in factories and settled the West, endured the lash of the whip and plowed the hard earth.
We have fought and died in places like Concord and Gettysburg, Normandy, and Khe Sahn.
Again and again these men and women have struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands in blood, so that we might have a better future. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions, larger than all differences of birth or wealth or faction.
This is the journey that continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are less productive than when the crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less necessary in the last week or last month or last year. Our ability to remain intact. But our time to stand still, to protect narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions, the time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, stand up and begin again the work of remaking America.
For everywhere we look, there work to do. The state of the economy calls for bold action and promptly, and we will act not only to create new jobs, but to lay the foundation for growth. Build the roads and bridges, electricity networks, digital lines that feed our trade and bind us together. Restore science to its rightful place of law and wield the wonders of technology to improve healthcare quality and lower costs. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and our factories. It will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new era. All this we can do it. And all this will do.
There are some who question the extent our ambitions, which suggest that our system can not tolerate too many big plans. They have a short memory. They have forgotten what this country has already done what free men and women can achieve when the imagination is joined to a common purpose, the need for courage.
What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath their feet, the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is whether our government is too big or too small, but if it works: if it helps families find jobs with decent salaries, care they can afford a retirement that is dignified. When the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. When the answer is no, the programs will end. And those of us who manage public dollars will be held to account: to spend wisely, to reform bad habits, and do the work in the light of their own, because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and its government .
Nor is the question whether the market is a force for good or for evil. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom comparisons, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can go out of control, and that a nation can not prosper long if it favors only the rich. The success of our economy depends not only on the size of our gross domestic product, but the reach of our prosperity, our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart, not out of charity but because it is the surest route to the common good.
As for our common defense, we reject as false choice between our security and our ideals. The Founding Fathers, in the face of dangers that we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter that would guarantee the respect of law and human rights, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the mondoe not give them up as needed. And all the people and governments today look, from the great capitals of the small village where my father was born, I say, know that America is a friend of every nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead.
Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism, not only with tanks and missiles, but with strong alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our strength is not enough to protect us, nor gives the right to do as we please. Instead, they knew that power grows when we make a prudent use our security emanates from the fact that our cause, the power of our example, the qualities of humility and restraint.
We are the custodians of this legacy. Guided by these principles once again, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater efforts - and even greater cooperation and understanding among nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a peace paid a heavy price in Afghanistan. With old friends and former enemies, we will work tirelessly to reduce the nuclear threat, and the specter of a warming planet. We will not apologize for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defense, and those who seek to advance their goals through terror and massacre of innocent people, we say that our spirit is strong and can not be broken. Not outlast us, and we will defeat.
Because we know that our diverse heritage is a strength, not a weakness, we are a nation of Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus - and non-believers, are shaped by every language and culture, from every corner of the earth. And since we felt the bitter cup of civil war and racial segregation, and emerged stronger and more united, we can not but believe that long-standing hatred of one day disappear, the boundary of the tribe shall be dissolved, which as the world grows smaller, our common humanity will come to light, and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.
the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders in the world who seek to sow discord, or to download the West to blame the ills of their society, know that your people will judge you based on what you are able to build, not destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the repression of dissent, you know that you are on the wrong side of history, but we are willing to reach out if you are willing to break the fist.
To the people of poor countries, we pledge to work together with you to make your farms and clean water slide, to feed hungry minds and bodies. And to those nations like us are lucky enough to enjoy a relative abundance, we say that we can no longer afford to be indifferent to the suffering outside our borders, nor can we consume the planet's resources without considering the consequences. Because the world has changed, and we must change with it.
Looking back to the road unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude to those brave Americans who currently patrol desert and distant mountains. They have something to say, as the whisper that comes to us over the years fallen heroes who lie in Arlington: We honor them not only because they are guardians of our freedom, but because they embody the spirit of service, the desire to find meaning in something greater than themselves. Yet at this moment - a moment that will define a generation - it is precisely this spirit that should animate us all.
Why, for what the government should and can do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people on which this nation relies. And 'good enough to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather not see a friend lose their job to guide us in our darkest hours. And 'the courage of the firefighter who faces a staircase filled with smoke, but also the readiness of a parent to nurture a child, which ultimately decides our fate.
Our challenges may be new, the tools with which we meet may be new, but the values \u200b\u200bupon which our success - hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is needed is a return to these truths. What we require now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition on the part of every American, we have duties to ourselves, our nation and the world, duties that do not grudgingly accept, but rather seize with joy, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing more satisfying to the spirit, More of our character, which give it all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.
This is the source of our confidence the notion that God calls us to shape an uncertain fate. This is the meaning of our freedom and our creed: why men and women and girls of every race and every faith can come together in celebration through this beautiful avenue, and why a man whose father sixty years ago could not be served at the restaurant can now stand before you to take a sacred oath.
So mark this day with remembrance of who we are and how far we have. In the year of birth, in the colder months, a small band of patriots huddled by fires dying on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing, the snow was stained with blood. And when our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered that these words were read to the people: "Let it be told to the future world ... That in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and courage could survive ... That the city and the country, alarmed at a common danger, came forth to meet him. "
America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our labors, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and courage, once again we face the icy currents, and endure the storms to come. What the children of our children can say that when we were pulled back to test there or stumbled, and with eyes fixed on the horizon and the grace of God with us, we carried forward the great gift of freedom, and delivered it safely to future generations.
