I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology
  for this.
 It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended
  for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base
  all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."
 This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it
  had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique
  idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is
  the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity
  for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution
  and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant
  capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them
  ourselves.
 You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but
  I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is
  only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual
  freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.
  Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those
  who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this
  downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the
  liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties,
  donations and benefits."
 The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy
  without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets
  out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its
  purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
 Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What
  greater service we could render if only we had a little more money
  and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of
  its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as
  economically as the private sector.
 Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders,
  we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals.
  It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with
  the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less
  fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never
  "for" anything.
 We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment
  by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social
  Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are
  against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception
  regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism
  of the program means that we want to end payments....
 We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings
  with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against
  doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy,
  if not socialism, all over the world.
 We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward
  I restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is
  denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as
  high as his strength and ability will take him.... But we can
  not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people
  who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social
  structure....
 Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality
  and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return
  to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country
  the tax collector's share is 37 cents of -very dollar earned.
  Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our
  grasp.
 Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself
  aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends?
  Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for
  your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized
  medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without
  socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of
  public power is eventually an assault upon your own business.
  If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of
  reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize
  that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.
 If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's
  at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known
  in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no
  security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and
  economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us
  to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state
  are architects of a policy of accommodation.
 They say the world has become too complex for simple answers.
  They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple
  answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally
  right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is
  not measured by material computation. When great forces are on
  the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals."
  And he said, "There is something going on in time and space,
  and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells
  duty."
 You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for
  our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will
  sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of
  darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's
  children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did
  all that could be done. 
Source:
This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook.
  The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted
  texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World
  history.
 Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the
  document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying,
  distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal
  use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source.
  No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
 (c)Paul Halsall May1998