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Republican
National Convention...
Text
of
the Speech of Condoleeza Rice
The
following is a transcript of a speech that former Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice gave at the Republican National Convention on Aug. 29,
2012.
RICE: Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you very
much.
Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
Thank you so
much. Good evening.
Good evening,
distinguished delegates. Good
evening,
fellow
Republicans. Good
evening, my fellow
Americans.
(APPLAUSE)
We gather here
at a time of significance and
challenge.
This
young century has been a difficult one.
I can remember as
if
it
were yesterday when my young assistants came into my
office
at the White House to say that a plane had hit the World
Trade
Center, and then, a second plane, and then a third plane,
the
Pentagon. And
later, we would learn that
a plane had
crashed
into a field in Pennsylvania, driven into the ground by
brave
souls who died so that others might live.
(APPLAUSE)
From that day on
-- from that day on, our
sense of
vulnerability
and our concepts of security were never the same
again.
Then, in 2008,
the global financial and
economic crisis
would
stun us. And it
still reverberates as we
deal with
unemployment
and economic uncertainty and bad policies that cast
a
pall
over an American economy and a recovery that is
desperately
needed at home and abroad.
And we have seen
-- we have seen that the
desire for
liberty
and freedom is, indeed, universal, as men and women in
the
Middle East rise up to seize it. Yet,
the promise of the
Arab
spring is engulfed in uncertainty, internal strife, and
hostile
neighbors our challenging the young, fragile democracy
of
Iraq. Dictators in
Iran and Syria
butcher their people and
threat
to regional security. Russia
and China
prevent a
response,
and everyone asks, where does America stand?
(APPLAUSE)
Indeed --
indeed, that is the question of
the hour. Where
does
America stand? You
see when the friends
or foes alike
don't
know the answer to that question, unambiguously and
clearly,
the world is likely to be a more dangerous and chaotic
place.
Since world war
ii, the United States has
had an answer to
that
question. We stand
for free peoples and
free markets. We
will
defend and support them.
(APPLAUSE)
We will sustain
a balance of power that
favors freedom.
Now, to be sure,
the burdens of leadership
have been heavy.
I
know,
as you do, the sacrifice of Americans, especially the
sacrifice
of many of our bravest in the ultimate sacrifice, but
our
armed forces are the surest shield and foundation of
liberty,
and we are so fortunate that we have men and women in
uniform
who volunteer, they volunteer to defend us at the front
lines
of
freedom, and we owe them our eternal gratitude.
(APPLAUSE)
I know too it
has not always been easy
though it has been
rewarding
to speak for those who otherwise do not have a voice.
The
religious dissident in China, the democracy advocate in
Venezuela,
the political prisoner in Iran.
It
has
been hard to muster the resources to support
fledgling
democracies and to intervene on behalf of the most
desperate. The AIDS orphans in
Uganda, the refugee
fleeing
Zimbabwe,
the young woman who has been trafficked into the sex
trade
in
Southeast Asia. It
has been hard, yet
this assistance
together
with the compassionate work of private charities,
people
of conscience and people of faith, has shown the soul of
our
country. And I know
too -- I know too
there is a wariness.
I
know
that it feels as if we have carried these burdens long
enough. But we can only know that
there is no choice,
because
one
of
two things will happen if we don't lead. Either no one
will
lead and there will be chaos, or someone will fill the
vacuum
who does not share our values.
My fellow
Americans, we do not have a
choice. We cannot be
reluctant
to lead and you cannot lead from behind.
(APPLAUSE)
Mitt Romney and
Paul Ryan understand this
reality. Our
well-
being at home and our leadership abroad are inextricably
linked. They know what to do. They know that our friends
and
allies
must again be able to trust us. From
Israel to Columbia,
from
Poland to the Philippines, our allies and friends have to
know
that we will be reliable and consistent and determined.
And
our
foes can have no reason to doubt our resolve because
peace
really does come through strength.
(APPLAUSE)
Our military
capability and our
technological advantage
will
be
safe in Mitt Romney's hands. We
must
work for an open,
global
economy, and pursue free and fair trade, to grow our
exports
and our influence abroad. If
you are
worried about the
rise
of
China, just consider this -- the United States has
negotiated
-- the United States has ratified only three trade
agreements
in the last few years, and those were negotiated in
the
Bush
administration.
China has signed
15 free trade agreements
and is in the
progress
of negotiating as many as 18 more.
Sadly, we are
abandoning
the field of free and fair trade and it will come
back
to
haunt us.
(APPLAUSE)
We must not
allow the chance to attain
energy independence
to
slip
from our grasp. We
are blessed with a
gift of oil and
gas
resources here in North America, and we must develop them.
We
can
develop them sensitively, we can develop them securing
our
environment, but we must develop them.
(APPLAUSE)
And we have the
ingenuity to develop
alternatives sources
of
energy. Most
importantly, Mitt Romney
and Paul Ryan will
rebuild
the foundation of our strength, the American economy --
stimulating
private sector growth and stimulating small business
entrepreneurship.
(APPLAUSE)
When the world
looks at us today, they see
an American
government
that cannot live within its means.
They
see an
American
government that continues to borrow money, that will
mortgage
the future of generations to come.
The
world knows
that
when a nation loses control of its finances, it eventually
loses
control of its destiny.
That
is
not the America that has inspired people to
follow
our lead.
(APPLAUSE)
After all, when
the world looks to America,
they look to us
because
we are the most successful economic and political
experiment
in human history. That
is the true basis
of American
exceptionalism.
You see, the essence of America, what really
unites
us, is not nationality or ethnicity or religion.
It is
an
idea. And what an
idea it is. That
you can come from humble
circumstances
and you can do great things, that it does not
matter
where you came from, it matters where you are going.
(APPLAUSE)
My fellow
Americans, ours has never been a
narrative of
grievance
and entitlement. We
have never believed
that I am
doing
poorly because you are doing well.
We
have never been
jealous
of one another and never envious of each others'
successes.
(APPLAUSE)
No, no, ours has
been a belief in
opportunity. And it
has
been
a
constant struggle, long and hard, up and down, to try to
extend
the benefits of the American dream to all.
But that
American
ideal is indeed in danger today. There
is no country,
no,
not
even a rising China that can do more harm to us than we
can
do
to ourselves if we do not do the hard work before us here
at
home.
(APPLAUSE)
More than at any
other time in history,
greatness is built
on
mobilizing human potential and ambition.
We have always done
that
better than any country in the world.
People have come
here
from all over because they have believed our creed of
opportunity
and limitless horizons.
They have come
here from the world's most
impoverished
nations
just to make a decent wage. And
they
have come here
from
advanced societies as engineers and scientists that fuel
the
knowledge-based revolution in the Silicon Valley of
California,
in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, along
Route
128 in Massachusetts, in Austin, Texas, and across this
great
land.
(APPLAUSE)
We must continue
to welcome the world's most
ambitious
people
to be a part of us. In
that way, we stay
young and
optimistic
and determined. We
need immigration laws
that
protect
our borders, meet our economic needs, and yet show that
we
are a
compassionate nation of immigrants.
(APPLAUSE)
We have been
successful too because
Americans have known
that
one's status of birth is not a permanent condition.
Americans
have believed that you might not be able to control
your
circumstances but you can control your response to your
circumstances.
(APPLAUSE)
And your
greatest ally in controlling your
response to your
circumstances
has been a quality education. But
today,
today,
when
I
can look at your zip code and I can tell whether you're
going
to
get a good education, can I honestly say it does not
matter
where you came from, it matters where you are going?
The
crisis
in K-12 education is a threat to the very fabric of who
we
are.
(APPLAUSE)
My mom was a
teacher. I respect
the profession. We
need
great
teachers, not poor ones and not mediocre ones.
We have to
have
high standards for our kids, because self-esteem comes from
achievement,
not from lax standards and false praise.
(APPLAUSE)
And we need to
give parents greater choice,
particularly,
particularly
poor parents whose kids, very often minorities, are
trapped
in failing neighborhood schools. This
is
the civil
rights
issue of our day.
(APPLAUSE)
If we do
anything less, we can damage
generations to
joblessness
and hopelessness and life on the government dole
(ph). If we do anything less, we
will endanger our
global
imperatives
for competitiveness. And
if we do
anything less, we
will
tear apart the fabric of who we are and cement the turn
toward
entitlement and grievance.
Mitt Romney and
Paul Ryan will rebuild us at
home. And
they
will help us lead abroad. They
will
provide an answer to
the
question, ``where does America stand?''
The challenge is real
and
the
times are hard. But
America has met and
overcome hard
challenges
before.
Whenever you
find yourself a doubting us,
just think about
all
those times that America made impossible seemed inevitable
in
retrospect. Our
revolutionary founding
act as the greatest
military
power of the time, a civil war, brother against
brother,
hundreds of thousands dead on both sides, but we
emerged
a more perfect union. A
second founding
when inpatient
patriots
were determined to overcome the birth defect of slavery
and
the
scourge of segregation.
A long
struggle against communism with the soviets even --
the
soviet union's collapse and in the aftermath of 9/11, the
willingness
to take hard, hard decisions that toward us and
prevented
the follow on attack that everybody thought
preordained.
(APPLAUSE)
And on a
personal note, a little girl grows
up in Jim Crow
Birmingham. The segregated city of the
south where her
parents
cannot
take her to a movie theater or to restaurants, but they
have
convinced that even if she cannot have it hamburger at
Woolworths,
she can be the president of the United States if she
wanted
to be, and she becomes the secretary of state.
(APPLAUSE)
Yes, yes.
Yes.
Yes, America has a way of
making the
impossible
seemed inevitable in retrospect, but we know it was
never
inevitable. It took leadership. And
it
took courage. And
it's
a
belief that our values. Mitt
Romney and
Paul Ryan have
the
integrity and the experience and the vision to lead us.
They
know who we are. They
know who we want
to be. They know
who
we are
in the world and what we offer.
That is why --
that is why this is a moment
and an election
of
consequence. Because
it just has to be
that the freest most
compassionate
country on the face of the earth will continue to
be
the
most powerful and the beacon for prosperity and the party
across
the world.
God bless you
and God bless this
extraordinary country,
this
exceptional country: The
United States
of America.
(APPLAUSE)
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