While I neither agree nor disagree with all included, this Presidential address makes me pause, especially when compared to what parties advocate for today via some of their more extreme policies and personalities… [Note: all emphasis mine.]
… Our country is still the strongest force for peace and freedom on Earth. On issues that once before tore us apart, we have changed the old politics of Washington. For too long, leaders in Washington asked who’s to blame. But we asked, what are we going to do?
On crime, we’re putting 100,000 police on the streets… We supported tougher punishment and prevention programs to keep our children from drugs and gangs and violence… The Federal work force is the smallest it has been since John Kennedy. And the deficit has come down for 4 years in a row for the first time since before the Civil War, down 60 percent on the way to zero. We will do it. We are on the right track to the 21st century. We are on the right track, but our work is not finished. What should we do? First, let us consider how to proceed. Again I say, the question is no longer who’s to blame but what to do.
I believe that [my political opponents] love our country, and they have worked hard to serve it. It is legitimate, even necessary, to compare our record with theirs, our proposals for the future with theirs. And I expect them to make a vigorous effort to do the same. But I will not attack. I will not attack them personally or permit others to do it in this party if I can prevent it… My fellow Americans, this must be—this must be—a campaign of ideas, not a campaign of insults. The American people deserve it.
Now, here’s the main idea… let us resolve to build that bridge to the 21st century, to meet our challenges and protect our values. Let us build a bridge to help our parents raise their children, to help young people and adults to get the education and training they need, to make our streets safer, to help Americans succeed at home and at work, to break the cycle of poverty and dependence, to protect our environment for generations to come, and to maintain our world leadership for peace and freedom. Let us resolve to build that bridge…
… we must demand excellence at every level of education… Let me say to our parents: You have to lead the way… We must give parents, all parents, the right to choose which public school their children will attend and to let teachers form new charter schools with a charter they can keep only if they do a good job. We must keep our schools open late so that young people have someplace to go and something to say yes to and stay off the street. We must require that our students pass tough tests to keep moving up in school. A diploma has to mean something when they get out. We should reward teachers that are doing a good job, remove those who don’t measure up, but in every case, never forget that none of us would be here tonight if it weren’t for our teachers…
I want to build a bridge to the 21st century in which we create a strong and growing economy to preserve the legacy of opportunity for the next generation, by balancing our budget in a way that protects our values and ensuring that every family will be able to own and protect the value of their most important asset, their home. Tonight let us proclaim to the American people, we will balance the budget… I want to balance the budget with real cuts in Government, in waste… We have an obligation, you and I, to leave our children a legacy of opportunity, not a legacy of debt… But the Government can only do so much. The private sector has to provide most of these jobs…
I want to build a bridge to the 21st century where our children are not killing other children anymore, where children’s lives are not shattered by violence at home or in the schoolyard, where a generation of young people are not left to raise themselves on the streets. With more police and punishment and prevention, the crime rate has dropped for 4 years in a row now. But we cannot rest, because we know it’s still too high…
We respect the individual conscience of every American on the painful issue of abortion but believe as a matter of law that this decision should be left to a woman, her conscience, her doctor, and her God. But abortion should not only be safe and legal, it should be rare…
My fellow Americans, I want to build a bridge to the 21st century that makes sure we are still the nation with the world’s strongest defense, that our foreign policy still advances the values of our American community in the community of nations. Our bridge to the future must include bridges to other nations, because we remain the world’s indispensable nation to advance prosperity, peace, and freedom and to keep our own children safe from the dangers of terror and weapons of mass destruction… Nothing in our lifetime has been more heartening than when people of the former Soviet Union and Central Europe broke the grip of communism. We have aided their progress, and I am proud of it. And I will continue our strong partnership with a democratic Russia…
We are fighting terrorism on all fronts with a three-pronged strategy… we are working to rally a world coalition with zero tolerance for terrorism… we must give law enforcement the tools they need to take the fight to terrorists… Terrorists are as big a threat to our future, perhaps bigger, than organized crime…
Look around this hall tonight—and to our fellow Americans watching on television, you look around this hall tonight—there is every conceivable difference here among the people who are gathered. If we want to build that bridge to the 21st century we have to be willing to say loud and clear: If you believe in the values of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Declaration of Independence, if you’re willing to work hard and play by the rules, you are part of our family and we’re proud to be with you… We still have too many Americans who give in to their fears of those who are different from them… So look around here, look around here: Old or young, healthy as a horse or a person with a disability that hasn’t kept you down, man or woman, Native American, native born, immigrant, straight or gay, whatever, the test ought to be, I believe in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Declaration of Independence; I believe in religious liberty; I believe in freedom of speech; I believe in working hard and playing by the rules; I’m showing up for work tomorrow; I’m building that bridge to the 21st century. That ought to be the test…
From Pres. Bill Clinton, accepting the Democratic nomination for President in 1996, less than 30 years ago.
Respectfully…
AR