President Barack Obama's inauguration speech uses aspiring rhetoric to bring the American people towards the ideal of self-sacrifice, as well as to inculcate us with a willingness to put our trust in government. While these sentiments are sincerely received, and I believe that the president has great intentions for the American people, his ideas fail on several grounds. First, the speech itself lacks the necessary cohesiveness to form a unifying philosophy. Second, the policy proposals themselves are destined towards failure. Third, President Obama does not properly account for human nature.

I can certainly understand why many Americans hang on President Obama's every word, but upon examination of the details, his words fail to unite around one or two unifying philosophical ideas. His rhetoric appears somewhat vapid. It appears the president is invoking many clichés, if not literally, at least by repeating certain mantras used by wet-behind-the-ears politicians. President Obama quotes sacred Scripture, which is admirable, but he does so out of context with its intended meaning. If President Obama backed up some of his ideals with solid policies, they would come across as more substantive.

The actual proposals mentioned by President Obama are not that much different than the positions of the political left and the Democratic Party since World War II. He proposes additional government intervention into the economy. The president makes policy proposals, such as those advancing renewable energies, without regard that the market would already be investing in these initiatives if there were prospects for success. The only thing the president can do, with the approval of the Congress, is divert money from productive to unproductive uses.

The president recommends additional spending in healthcare, education, and on the poor. These are not new ideas, and Democratic politicians have been advocating for these issues for a long time. We have seen over and over again that simply adding more money to failed programs does not solve these problems. Sometimes there is so much money available towards these causes that bureaucrats don't even know how to spend it so that it reaches the right people. It may go to people who take advantage of the system or simply go to fund jobs for people without regard to their usefulness. I would like to see the president offer some new ideas on how to improve education, healthcare and welfare programs in the United States.

Most importantly, however, is that the president does not seem to grasp the unchangeable aspect of human nature. It is part of being human that human beings are naturally self-interested. Even when we do good deeds for other people, it is not often with a truly self-sacrificial motive. This is not to attack the goodness of the American people, but in order that we understand more properly how to design government policy. No policy has the ability to change human nature; rather, policy needs to understand and work with human nature.

If human beings acted in accord with moral law, with the way we know we ought to live, we would indeed be self-sacrificial, but without some extraordinary, external intervention, it is unlikely that we will see this behavior in man. If the president wants to address this issue, he would have to speak to the American people about true faith and belief in God, as God alone possesses the power to change human beings.

I sincerely want to see our new president succeed in his undertakings. He is an intelligent, educated, energetic and optimistic leader. The American people can always use another hero in our midst. In order for President Obama to be successful he will need to study policy in a way that he is not seeking to justify his preexisting beliefs, but rather to genuinely seek to educate himself on what is the best and true way to develop policies that will guide the American nation for the next four years.

Eric can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it