The Inaugural Address: Types of Arguments

Granted I am only 20 years old and have only been old enough to remember just a few Inaugural Addresses, I believe that this address was very compelling. I think that it gave Americans hope. One of Barack Obama's main campaign messages was hope. I am not a Democrat, but this speech has given me hope that we will come out of this crisis that we are in right now. Like many public speeches, this speech had many arguments in it. So of which argued with hope in mind and some of which argued some ideas that will help us come out of this crisis. A few types of arguments that I noticed were arguments to inform, convince, and arguments of the past and future. I also saw arguments that evaluate everywhere in this speech. One argument to inform was stated early in the speech, Obama said, "44 citizens have taken the oath...yet, every so often, the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms." This was very compelling to me because Obama was arguing that we have been here before and that we can get out of this situation like we always have. President Obama also used an argument to convince, also could be an argument to convey hope, when he said, "The challenges we face are real and they are many...but know this America, they will be met." This did a lot for me and my view of our new President because it convinced me that there was hope in this changing our Presidents. There were also many arguments of the past and future. I think that you will find many of both of these in almost every speech you listen to because they are arguing for either a change or for a continuation to events. I noticed two argument of the past. They were, "I thank President Bush for his service to our nation" and "For us, they (the soldiers) fought and died." These two arguments both stated by President Obama are not the most compelling, but they argue that the past events have changed history in some shape or form. The two arguments of the future that I picked up by on President Obama were two statements that argued America's role in international peace. These two arguments were, "America is a friend to each nation" and "America must play it's role in ushering in a new era of peace." President Obama also made many arguments of evaluation. One example of this type of argument came when Obama said, "Our economy is weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility by some but also our collective failure to make hard choices." This was a great argument in my opinion because President Obama cut to the point and stated why we are having problems. This address was definitely one of hope but also one of argument. It outlined a few things that we need to do to better our nation as well as argued for change. In my opinion, I believe President Obama made the right arguments and stuck with his overall plan of change very well.