More About the Inauguration

I know I already talked about Obama's inauguration, but after reading the last two issues of Time, I found I actually had more to say about it (but not that much). Some people who like focusing on little issues ('little q', as Dr. H would undoubtedly say) lambasted Obama's inaugural address for the supposed lack of historical catchphrases. Since presidential speeches upon inauguration have only yielded timeless quotes twice, both by presidents known by a three letter acronym (FDR's "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" and JFK's "Ask not what your country can do for you, etc."), the perceived lack of such a phrase was not as crazy as some people have made it up to be. However, after reading two seperate articles that repeatedly quoted the speech, and after listening to the speech again and grading it with a rubric in IPC, I have found a few memorable quotes. They are:
"The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small but whether it works."
And
"What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them-that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply."
Both of them are lengthy quotes (I shortened the first one to make it more basic and memorable), but I think they underline everything that President Obama is all about. One of my friends, skeptical of Obama, said that Obama's "Change" message is stupid. "Change? What change? You want to be more specific?!" He has asked multiple times. These quotes outline the response to that question, which I know is not limited to my friend: Obama's 'change' is a change on a very basic level, a change on almost every layer of our existence. No more of the old "big gov't vs. small gov't" talk; no more of the focusing on the little q's. We need to change how we view others and how we view ourselves. We need to change our views towards war, science, religion, and politics. We need to come to a decision about our role in the world at large and decide how far we are willing to go, and how much we are willing to sacrifice, to feel secure. We need to change our government and how we view our government. We need a government that respects us and the Constitution from which it derives its power.
As Obama said, perhaps what skeptics like my friend fail to understand is that this change is already beginning.