From: eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.elections,talk.politics.misc
Subject: Remarks by William Bennett (text)
Summary: Nomination of Dan Quayle for US Vice President -- RNC 1992
Keywords: Bill Bennett, Dan Quayle, George Bush, Houston, RNC
Date: 2 Sep 92 20:47:24 GMT
Followup-To: alt.rush-limbaugh
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

<< Acknowledgments to the Republican National Committee for supplying me
the transcriptions upon request. >>

Republican National Convention
Remarks by William Bennett, former Secretary of Education

Nomination of Dan Quayle for US Vice President

Houston Astrodome, Houston, TX
August 19, 1992

WILLIAM BENNETT:
Thank you. Let me start from departing from my text. << It's in here, so
he's not departing from THIS text! >> As a trained philosopher and as a 
sometimes objective commentator for the news media, I'd like to say I think
this is a whole lot more interesting than New York.

This is a diverse party in many ways -- intellectually. And we can be very
proud of that fact. That other party has nothing on us.

It's late summer in Houston at the Astrodome. We're in the process now of
getting our team on the field. And we are in this week determining the nature
of the game we're about to play.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am proud to stand before you tonight to renominate
Dan Quayle as Vice President of the United States.

Dan Quayle -- I know Dan Quayle. Dan Quayle is a friend of mine, and he's
a friend of yours, and he's a great public servant. I'm particularly pleased
to have the honor today because of Dan Quayle's success in sparking a much
needed debate about our most important social issues, the values by which
we live and the values which we convey to our children.

Remember, nothing -- nothing more powerfully determines the shape of a
child's life than his values, his internal process, his beliefs, his sense
of right and wrong. It is the child's values, more than his race, his class,
his sex, his ethnicity, his neighborhood, his genes, his background. It is
the values that a child is taught that will more determine that child's fate.
And, consistent with our theme tonight, I remind you of what you already
know. It is given to families preeminently to provide those values.

Now having been buried beneath the Reagan and Bush landslides of the last
three Presidential elections, the Democratic party is now eager to wrap
itself in the banner of traditional family values. But to be a champion of
traditional values requires more than rhetoric.

The American people will judge the two parties not only by what they say but
by what they do, by what they stand for, and by what they will fight for.
So let the Democratic party invoke the mantra of a New Covenant. Our Grand
Old Party will continue to hold our sacred old covenant and the ideals
which they embody.

America does not need false prophets bearing new covenants. What we need
are men and women of character who adhere to old principles.

Family values represent a great dividing line between the parties. This
line, be sure to remember, involves very specific matters of policy. For
example, we believe that families should be able to send their children
to schools that they choose. Not all teachers are parents, but all parents
are teachers -- children's first teachers, children's all but indispensible
teachers. And those parents should be able to send their children to schools
that affirm the most deeply held convictions of parents.

Second, we believe that our nation's public schools should not be doing
things like handing our condoms to our children. Educators should not be
allowed to usurp the authority from parents in this and other sensitive
areas. Remember, the child is not a ward given to the state for its nuture.
The child is a gift of God, given in trust to his parents.

And our schools should treat our young people as gifts of God, not as
subjects of social experimentation, or as young animals in heat.

On our side of the cultural divide[-ing?] line we believe that government
should not subsidize pornography and obscenity. We do not believe that filth
is a cultural achievement worthy of public support. Our culture has become
increasingly coarse. It has begun to fray our social fabric. Our children
have suffered from this. There are, after all, some things that children
simply should not see.

It's bad enough that so much of what passes for art and entertainment these
days is the rampant promiscuity and casual cruelty of the movies and
television in much of our popular culture. But to ask us to pay for it is to
add insult to injury.

We will not be intimidated by putative cultural guardians into accepting
either the insult or the injury.

We believe, as well, that more of our children should have the opportunity
to be raised with fathers in their lives. Young boys and girls who do not
grow up with fathers are far more likely to drop out of school, to become
promiscuous, to go on welfare, to use drugs, and to commit crime.

In saying this, we do not disparage the good, noble, and sometimes great
effort of single or divorced mothers. I know of what I speak. My mother
was divorced and raised my brother and me. Later in my life, a stepmother
intervened with love and affection and care.

As Barbara Bush said earlier, it is this idea of the family that we embrace;
mothers and fathers, stepmothers and stepfathers, adoptive mothers and
fathers, foster parents, grandparents, uncles, aunts, brothers and sisters.

So in talking about the family, we will not disparage the noble efforts of
good women. But in noting the decline of the American family we will say
something to the men of America. And to the men of America, we say this,
man to man. Fatherhood involves a lot more than getting a woman pregnant.
Real men, real fatherhood means love and committment and sacrifice and a
willingness to share responsibility and not walking away from one's children.

Let me, as well, very briefly address the tumultuous issue of alternative
lifestyles. Heaven knows there are lots of them. This is a free country.
Within very broad limits people may live as they wish. And yet, we believe
that some ways of living are better than others. Better because they bring
more meaning to our lives, to the lives of others, and to our fragile
fallible human condition.

Marriage and parenthood should be held up because between marriage between
husband and wife and in fatherhood and motherhood come blessings that
cannot be won any other way. We believe these things and we believe them
strongly because we believe the family to be our most important institution.
We believe our families to be the first, the best, and the original
Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.

In our time, efforts must be made to preserve and strengthen the family.
Heroic efforts, if necessary. And we, this party, will make those efforts.

Let me be clear about one thing. When we talk about traditional family values,
we are not using code words. We are not seeking a political wedge issue and
we are not speaking to demean or belittle others. Rather, we're seeking to
honor and to affirm what is best in us, what Lincoln has called "the better
angles of our nation." [Quotes mine.]

But there are differences between our two political parties and the
differences are real and the differences have consequences. So we Republicans
continue candidly to address the issue of values. We will be civil but we
will not yield.

We will not be discouraged from discussing right and wrong without
embarrassment. We will not be discouraged from defining religion as the
anchor of morality, and we will never stop affirming that all real education
is the architecture of the soul.

This understanding of what we hold dear, of what we believe, has far too
few defenders in our public life. One of the reasons that's the case is that
those who candidly speak our on behalf of these matters become the object
of assault and caricature by their critics from the adversary culture.

Judging from the Democratic Convention, it may now have become politically
correct to say you are in favor of the values of family and personal
morality. But what is not so politically correct is to be precise about what
you mean. What is not politically correct is to stand up against the critics.
What is not politically correct is to say that there are some things that
we stand for and there are some things that we will not stand for.

Ladies and gentlemen, it may not come as a great shock to you, but let me
say it anyway. I am very proud to tell you that Dan Quayle is _not_
politically correct. [Underlining my own]

Dan Quayle has stood for family values. Dan Quayle has stood up against his
critics. He has been principled. He has been courageous. And in response, he
has been belittled. But he has not been silenced.

In Dan Quayle, we have had a case study of courage under fire. Through it all,
this good and decent man has demonstrated his grace, his resolve, his
resilience. He has earned our respect, and we will stand by our man.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased and honored to place in nomination for
the Vice Presidency of the United States our friend Dan Quayle.
*** END ***
-- 
Emil Thomas Chuck (Duke BME '93)		eyc@acpub.duke.edu
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