You see these trucks all over town. I’m sure you do in your own city. But what is this? The reason why people in the AFL-CIO or anybody else, when they’re out of work, turns to the government for jobs is an illustration of exactly what I said yesterday. Liberals have created these circumstances where problems do not get solved, and people keep complaining about them, and the more mucked up these things get the better the liberals like it. Blame it all on the Republicans, spend more money to fix it, it’s still never ending cycle. It never gets fixed. It’s just pathetic. What, I have no compassion? Let me tell you something: this is the epitome of compassion.
This is one thing that frustrates me beyond all get-out. It is the epitome of compassion to suggest that somebody has the wherewithal, the ability to do things for themselves. To inspire that, to try to motivate that, is the epitome of compassion. What are we going to do? “Oh, I feel so sorry you’re out of work!” and these nine Democratic candidates are supposed to get you a job? The reason they’re running for office is they themselves don’t have jobs, and they’re looking for a job, and they’re depending on everybody else to give them votes to get the job.
And you turn to these people to help you? I can understand this if we were a socialist, communist country, but we’re a free-market-based economy. I guess the whole concept of self-reliance to some people is just foreign. It’s negative and so forth. That’s why, you know, this guy that called C-SPAN suggested that I should be a candidate. I wouldn’t last after my first speech. My first speech and first campaign appearance, I would be drummed out. Some people would like what I said, but I’d be drummed out as insensitive and, as you said, without compassion. I’ll tell you what my campaign speech would be. Either before I’m elected, or after I’m elected, I would say this or something like this:
“Okay, folks, listen up. I cannot single-handedly lead this country. I cannot single-handedly make this country work. I am not here to hear and listen to what your complaints are. I am not here to answer individual problems and to be the solution to individual problems. That’s not what I’m here for. What I’m here for is to get obstacles out of your way so that you can use whatever talent and ambition you have to become the best you can be – because if that doesn’t happen, the country doesn’t remain great. It is up to you to make the country work; it’s to you to provide the things that you need and you want. It is not up to me, and that’s not going to be my objective. My objective is going to be making sure this nation is protected from foreign attack. Our national security and our military will be priority #1. I’m going to make sure that we fix the education system and get all the kinks worked out of that.”
And I’d go on down the list. But the focal point of it all would be: “It isn’t up to me; it’s up to you, just as it always has been.” Now, you can imagine I would be drummed out of a campaign after that speech. That would be the end of me, simply because of the number of people in this country who think the presidency and all of Washington is about solving their problems – and the sad reality is that most problems that exist that these people have in their lives are the result of some government involvement that need not be. Now, there are certain things government can and should do. You know, to protect the general welfare and all that, and national security is chief among them.
One thing I would do (and I’d get in big trouble for this) if I nominated great people for the federal judiciary, be it the district judges or the appellate judges, after nominating I would fight for them. I wouldn’t sit there letting them twist in the wind, get 15 or 20 votes each to get confirmed but their nomination is denied because there’s a filibuster. If there’s a filibuster, then, damn it, there’s going to be one. These guys are going to stay on the Senate floor 24/7; they’re going to have speeches about a bunch of stuff. I’m not going to let them have a filibuster just because they say they’re doing one or just because they threaten one. If they’re going to play around like this, they’re going to have to actually do a filibuster. At the same time: nominate these people, then fight for them.
I would not nominate people and sit around and let their reputations careers and maybe even lives be destroyed by the likes of a bunch of reprobates like Ted Kennedy and Pat Leahy and Chuck Schumer. And, boy, that’s it for me as a result of that. I mean, I would be called insensitive, cold-hearted, cruel, all of these clich?s that people have. One of the reasons I am eternally optimistic is the answer to the questions, “Why does this country keep working? Why is this country the nation’s loan superpower? Why is this country what it is, and why does it remain so?” It’s not because of government, and it isn’t because of government programs.
I don’t have an animus toward government as an institution. I’m very aware it’s necessary. But the country is great because of our God-given freedom which allows people to pursue the best in themselves. We’re human beings just like everybody else is in the world. We are human beings no different than people living in Liberia, no different than people living in Iraq, no different than the people that lived in the old Soviet Union, no different than the people living in the socialist bastion of European Union. Why do we run rings around them? They’ve been around as cultures and societies thousands of years longer than we have. In less than 225 years, we ruled the world!
There’s one reason, and it is the fact that we have enshrined in our founding documents the root of our freedom, and we have enshrined the fact that the yearning to be free is part of the human spirit as created. As such it is acknowledged, it is promoted, it’s triumphed. The problem with government is it gets in the way of this. It assumes that people don’t know what to do with their freedom. “Most people don’t have the wherewithal to make the right decisions in life.” That’s the liberal belief. But my belief is that you never hear about the people that make this country work. They’re not the famous. They’re not the notorious.
They’re not the people that fill gossip columns and Page 6. They’re simply good old, down-to-earth people who are simply using the greatest opportunity they’ve ever been given any human being has – and that’s to be an American. And if it weren’t for the individuals who are doing whatever it is they do to be the best to whatever degree – the best they can be for their families, for themselves, whatever – then the country wouldn’t be what it is. There’s not one government program that has made this the greatest country in the world other than the defense program, the military, and so forth. That enshrines us, that protects us, and that provides a deterrent to anybody who might want to take action against us.
But it’s the people of this country who make it work. When I hear more and more people fail to understand that, fail to understand their own potential, fail to understand what it is that they have at their fingertips, at of their disposal, to fix whatever problems exist in their lives and instead turn to some person they don’t even know? Most limitations are self-imposed! Why turn to some person who’s been making promises to fix all these things for years? The problems never get fixed. They never get solved. Why yellow light the same people? Why keep turning to and voting for the same people and keep complaining about the same things? It becomes very frustrating after a while, because it’s wholly unnecessary.
At the same time, these very people can look around and see that there are people in their neighborhoods and their towns or communities who are running rings around everybody else. Why not emulate them, instead of turning your life over to some nameless, faceless politician who doesn’t know you and doesn’t really care about you other than your vote? It has long befuddled me. Well, it actually doesn’t befuddle me. I understand the psychology of the whole liberal movement. But it’s frustrating nevertheless, because the role models, the people that are out there who can provide the motivation and the inspiration are in the process of being denigrated and impugned.
Their achievements are punished, criticized, cheapened and so forth. On the other hand, do things the wrong way in way too many instances? Why, we’re making virtue out of failure or making virtue out of victimology! We’re making virtue out of the wrong things – which is encouraging people to join groups that are in essence victim groups. They want to be virtuous and they want to be thought of as people who gave it their best shot, but because of the obstacles of the rich and whoever else, they just couldn’t get where they want to go and now need assistance. It’s a shame, because it’s just wholly unnecessary. We could be an even greater country than we are, but before we get there we have to remain as great as we are. The education system is a problem.