Values Voter Summiteer Says Some GOP “Soul-Searching” Needed If Obama Wins
A HuffPo article about the ongoing Family Research Council “Values Voter Summit” that (dis)graced Washington D.C. last weekend quotes an entrepreneurial attendee, Mike Garner,
“a 27-year-old hawking ‘Reagan was right’ buttons at the meeting: ‘If Romney loses this election, the party really needs to do some soul-searching.'”
Below are excerpts from some of last weekend’s Values Voter Summit speeches of those who would be the soul-searchers. Do they seem like soul-searchers to you? Soul searching implies, of course, a soul that has been lost; in that way, yes, they – and the largest portion of the GOP – do qualify.
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“This president – this president has decided leading from behind is what he wants to do and that the role is for America. We have a president who believes that the American government can be no source for good in the world and that the American government can be the only source for good in America. (Applause.)
He doesn’t believe in the business community. He doesn’t believe in families and churches and communities. He believes in the power of the federal government to do more, to control more, to redistribute wealth, to require you to do things so all of us end up as equals.
. . .
We will never have the media on our side, ever, in this country. We will never have the elite smart people on our side, because they believe they should have the power to tell you what to do. So our colleges and universities, they’re not going to be on our side. The conservative movement will always be – and that’s why we [Santorum and others] founded Patriot Voices – the basic premise of America and American values will always be sustained through two institutions, the church and the family.” (Applause.)
“And as we survey the political landscape today, it feels like it’s déjà vu all over again because we’re seeing struggles all across the Middle East and we’re seeing a tax on our embassies in a way that we saw in the late 1970s. Staggering unemployment. High gas prices. A struggling economy. You’d almost think Jimmy Carter’s back in the White House again, wouldn’t you ? Only what we see is we are again desperate for another Ronald Reagan.
This time, I’m sorry to say, it’s even worse because the fires of radical Islamic traditionalism are not just limited to one country. They’re currently raging all across Africa and all across Asia. Each week our Christian brothers and sisters from Nigeria to Kenya are being persecuted. When they go to church, they don’t even know if they’ll make it home afterwards.
And now the violence has come to us, the United States. And on the anniversary of 9/11, no less, our Libyan ambassador and his courageous embassy staff lost their lives in Benghazi and Libya in a cruel, cold-blooded, gruesome, intentional terror attack. And all the while, the response of this administration has communicated both weakness and lack of resolve to the world. (Applause.)
And a top official seemed, incredulously, apparently convinced that the only way to curtail this crisis is to put a full, frontal attack on the free speech rights of American citizens. I want to be perfectly clear: this isn’t just about a movie. This was an intentional act that was done by radical Islamists who seek to impose their set of beliefs on the rest of the world, and we will not stand for it!” (Cheers, applause.)
“Now, again, one of the cornerstones of the fabric of who we are, as Thomas Jefferson wrote, is the concept of freedom. It’s the concept of liberty. I had the privilege of serving in Virginia’s House of Delegates. And in Mr. Jefferson’s capital I sat. And behind me on the wall was etched in granite Virginia’s statute of religious freedom, guaranteeing to all the right to practice their faith, the placement of faith in our lives, not something for us to shrink from but something for us to protect. (Applause.)
Now – but sadly, today, as a result of “Obamacare,” many of our fellow Americans are now being forced to take our government to court, to sue them, to sue our government in order to practice our faith. Now, this is not what America is about, and this is why we must repeal “Obamacare” once and for all. (Cheers, applause.) It is – it is downright an issue of religious liberty. This is why we need a president and a Senate who will stand up with us, who will stand strong for religious freedom.
Now, we’re all seeing the attacks on religious freedom unfold around the world. We see what’s going on in the Middle East this week. But let us not mistake – the fight for religious freedom starts here at home, because we are one nation under God. (Applause.) And this – and this is – this is despite what that other party has put in their platform. Let us remember we are that one nation under God, and we will stand tall and stand proud to uphold that.” (Applause.)
Rand Paul, waxing poetic:
“Thank you. Thank you.
Can you believe we had trouble getting – or the Democrats had trouble getting God into the platform? (Laughter.) Sounds like there wasn’t much dissension out here on the vote, though.
You may have heard there was a little girl, and she wanted a hundred dollars, and she said she’d do good things with it. So she wrote a letter. She said, dear God, I’d like a hundred dollars. The postmaster got it, and he said, I don’t know what to do with it. So he sent it to the president. And the president said, well, that’s cute. And he said to his secretary, send the little girl $5; she’ll appreciate that.
So the little girl got it and was, like, five bucks. But her parents told her, always write a thank-you. And so she did. She said, dear God, thanks for the five bucks, but next time, don’t send it through Washington; they stole 95 percent of it.” (Laughter, applause.) [Editor: “Stop! Stop! Please. You’re killin’ me!”]
And, finally, Paul Ryan:
“If we renew the contract, we will get the same deal – with only one difference: In a second term, he will never answer to you again.
In so many ways, starting with Obamacare, re-electing this president would set in motion things that can never be called back. It would be a choice to give up so many other choices.
When all the new mandates of government-run healthcare come down, the last thing the regulators will want to hear is your opinion. When the Obama tax increases start coming, nobody in Washington is going to ask whether you can afford them or not.
When all the new borrowing brings our national debt to 20 trillion dollars, and then 25 trillion, nobody’s going to ask you about the debt crisis, or even help you prepare for it. But we the people need to think ahead, even if our current president will not, to avoid that crisis while there is still time.
. . .
The President is given to lectures on all that we owe to government, as if anyone who opposes his reckless expansion of federal power is guilty of ingratitude and rank individualism.
He treats private enterprise as little more than a revenue source for government. He views government as the redistributor and allocator of opportunity.”
