Stephen’s Lighthouse points the beam at a four year old speech, which Obama held for the American Library Association as a young senator. His eloquence and his sense for “the right thing to say” is no news. He says:
At a time when book banning is back in vogue, libraries remind us that truth isn’t about who yells the loudest, but who has the right information.
That’s why I’ve been working with Republicans and Democrats to make sure that we have a Patriot Act that helps us track down terrorists without trampling on our civil liberties. This is an issue that Washington always tries to make into an either-or proposition. Either we protect our people from terror or we protect our most cherished principles. But I don’t believe in either-or. I believe in both ends. I think we can do both. I think when we pose the choice as either-or, it is asking too little of us and it assumes too little about America. I believe we can harness new technologies and a new toughness to find terrorists before they strike, while still protecting the very freedoms we’re fighting for in the first place.
Ah! The man who spoke those words is now president of the United States. Ain’t that great?
Read the whole speech here.
