From: eyc@acpub.duke.edu (EMIL CHUCK)
Newsgroups: alt.rush-limbaugh,alt.fan.dan-quayle,alt.fan.rush-limbaugh,alt.politics.elections,alt.politics.bush,alt.politics.clinton
Subject: SPEECH: Dan Quayle on "Restoring Basic Values"
Summary: May 19, 1992 Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco
Keywords: family values, Dan Quayle, speech, Murphy Brown
Date: 12 Sep 92 19:32:04 GMT
Followup-To: alt.rush-limbaugh
Organization: Duke University; Durham, N.C.

Contributions are welcome for the "Send Emil Thomas Chuck a scanner
fund." Typing miscues are my own. Speech is taken from _Vital Speeches
of the Day_ beginning on p. 517 of this year.


Restoring Basic Values: Strengthening the Family
Dan Quayle, Vice President of the United States
Delivered at the Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco CA
May 19 1992

As you may know, I've just returned from a week-long trip to Japan. I
was there to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the reversion of
Okinawa to Japan by the United States, an act that has made a lasting
impression on the Japanese.

While I was there, Japan announced its commitment to join with the
United States in assisting Eastern and Central Europe with a $400
million aid package. We also announced a manufacturing technology
initiative that will allow American engineers to gain experience working
in Japanese businesses.

Japan and the United States are allies and partners. Though we have our
differences, especially in the area of trade, our two countries -- with
40% of the world's GNP -- are committed to a global partnership in
behalf of peace and economic growth.

But in the midst of all these discussions of international affairs, I
was asked many times in Japan about the recent events in Los Angeles.
From the perspective of many Japanese, the ethnic diversity of our
culture is a weakness compared to their homogenous society. I begged to
differ with my hosts. I explained that our diversity is our strength.
And I explained that the immigrants who come to our shores have made,
and continue to make, vast contributions to our culture and our economy.

It is wrong to imply that the Los Angeles riots were an inevitable
outcome of our diversified society. but the question that I tried to
answer in Japan is one that needs answering here: What happened? Why?
And how do we prevent it in the future?

One response has been predictable: Instead of denouncing wrongdoing,
some have shown tolerance for rioters; some have enjoyed saying "I told
you so"; and some have simply made excuses for what happened. All of
this has been accompanied by pleas for more money.

I'll readily accept that we need to understand what happened. But I
reject the idea we should tolerate or excuse it.

When I have been asked during these last weeks who caused the riots and
the killing in L.A., my answer has been direct and simple: Who is to
blame for the riots? The rioters are to blame. Who is to blame for the
killings? The killers are to blame. Yes, I can understand how people
were shocked and outraged by the verdict in the Rodney King trial. But
there is simply no excuse for the mayhem that followed. To apologize or
in any way to excuse what happened is wrong. It is a betrayal of all
those people equally outraged and equally disadvantaged who did not loot
and did not riot -- and who were in many cases victims of the rioters.
No matter how much you may disagree with the verdict, the riots were
wrong. And if we as a society don't condemn what is wrong, how can we
teach our children what is right?

But after condemning the riots, we do need to try to understand the
underlying situation.

In a nutshell: I believe the lawless social anarchy which we saw is
directly related to the breakdown of family structure, personal
responsibility, and social order in too many areas of our society. For
the poor the situation is compounded by a welfare ethos that impedes
individual efforts to move ahead in society, and hampers their ability
to take advantage of the opportunities America offers.

If we don't succeed in addressing these fundamental problems, and in
restoring basic values, any attempt to fix what's broken will fail. But
one reason I believe we won't fail is that we have come so far in the
last 25 years.

There is no question that this country has had a terrible problem with
race and racism. The evil of slavery has left a long legacy. But we have
faced racism squarely, and we have made progress in the past quarter
century. The landmark civil rights bills of the 1960's removed legal
barriers to allow full participation by blacks in the economic, social
and political life of the nation. By any measure the America of 1992 is
more egalitarian, more integrated, and offers more opportunities to
black Americans -- and all other minority group members -- than the
America of 1964. There is more to be done. But I think that all of us
can be proud of our progress.

And let's be specific about one aspect of this progress: This country
now has a black middle class that barely existed a quarter century ago.
Since 1967 the median income of black two-parent families has risen by
60% in real terms. The number of black college graduates has
skyrocketed. Black men and women have achieved real political power --
black mayors head 48 of our largest cities, including Los Angeles. Those
are achievements.

But as we all know, there is another side to that bright landscape.
During this period of progress, we have also developed a culture of
poverty -- some call it an underclass -- that is far more violent and
harder to escape than it was a generation ago.

The poor you always have with you, Scripture tells us. And in America,
we have always had poor people. But in this dynamic, prosperous nation,
poverty has traditionally been a stage through which people pass on
their way to joining the great middle class. And if one generation
didn't get very far up the ladder -- their ambitious, better-educated
children would.

But the underclass seems to be a new phenomenon. It is a group whose
members are dependent on welfare for very long stretches, and whose men
are often drawn into lives of crime. There is far too little upward
mobility because the underclass is disconnected from the rules of
American society. And these problems have, unfortunately, been
particularly acute for Black Americans.

Let me share with you a few statistics on the difference between black
poverty in particular in the 1960's and now.
	- In 1967, 68% of black families were headed by married couples.
In 1991, only 48% of black families were headed by both a husband and
wife.
	- In 1965, the illegitimacy rate among black families was 28%.
In 1989, 65% -- two-thirds -- of all black children were born to
never-married mothers.
	- In 1951, 9.2% of black youth between 16-19 were unemployed. In
1965, it was 23%. In 1980, it was 35%. By 1989, the number had declined
slightly, but was still 32%.
	-The leading cause of death of young black males today is
homicide.

It would be overly simplistic to blame this social breakdown on the
programs of the Great Society alone. it would be absolutely wrong to
blame it on the growth and success most Americans enjoyed during the
1980's. Rather we are in large measure reaping the whirlwind of decades
of changes in social mores.

I was born in 1947, so I'm considered one of those "Baby Boomers" we
keep reading about. But let's look at one unfortunate legacy of the
"Boomer" generation. When we were young, it was fashionable to declare
war against traditional values. Indulgence and self-gratification seemed
to have no consequences. Many of our generation glamorized casual sex
and drug use, evaded responsibility and trashed authority. Today the
"Boomers" are middle-aged and middle-class. The responsibility of having
famileis has helped many recover traditional values. And, of course, the
great majority of those in the middle class survived the turbulent
legacy of the 60's and 70's. But many of the poor, with less to fall
back on, did not.

The intergenerational poverty that toubles us so much today is
predominantly a poverty of values. Our inner cities are filled with
children having children; with people who have not been able to take
advantage of educational opportunities; with people who are dependent on
drugs or the narcotic of welfare. To be sure, many people in the ghettos
struggle very hard against these tides -- and sometimes win. But too
many feel they have no hope and nothing to lose. This poverty is, again,
fundamentally a poverty of values.

Unless we change the basic rules of society in our inner cities, we
cannot expect anything else to change. We will simply get more of what
we saw three weeks ago. New thinking, new ideas, new strategies are
needed.

For the government, transforming underclass culture means that our
policies and programs must create a different incentive system. Our
policies must be premised on, and must reinforce, values such as:
family, hard work, integrity, and personal responsibility.

I think we can all agree that government's first obligation is to
maintain order. We are a nation of laws, not looting. It has become
clear that the riots were fueled by the vicious gangs that terrorize the
inner cities. We are committed to breaking those gangs and restoring law
and order. As James Q. Wilson has written, "Programs of economic
restructuring will not work so long as gangs control the streets."

Some people say "law and order" are code words. Well, they are code
words. Code words for safety, getting control of the streets, and
freedom from fear. And let's not forget that, in 1990, 84% of the crimes
committed by blacks were committed against blacks.

We are for law and order. If a single mother raising her children in the
ghetto has to worry about drive-by shootings, drug deals, or whether her
children will join gangs and die violently, her difficult task becomes
impossible. We're for law and order because we can't expect children to
learn in dangerous schools. We're for law and order because if property
isn't protected, who will build businesses?

As one step on behalf of law and order -- and on behalf of opportunity
as well -- the President has initiated the "Weed and Seed" program -- to
"weed out" criminals and "seed" neighborhoods with programs that address
root causes of crime. And we have encouraged community-based policing,
which gets the police on the street so they interact with citizens.

Safety is absolutely necessary. But it's not sufficient. Our urban
strategy is to empower the poor by giving them control over their lives.
To to that our urban agenda includes:
	- Fully funding the Home-ownership and Opportunity for People
Everywhere program. HOPE -- as we call it -- will help public housing
residents become home-owners. Subsidized housing all too often merely
made rich investors richers. Home ownership will give the poor a stake
in their neighborhoods, and a chance to build equity.
	- Creating enterprise zones by slashing taxes in tageted areas,
including a zero capital gains tax, to spur entrepreneurship, economic
development, and job creation in inner cities.
	- Instituting our education strategy, AMERICA 2000, to raise
academic standards and to give the poor the same choices about how and
where to educate their children as rich people.
	- Promoting welfare reform to remove the penalties for marriage,
create incentives for saving, and give communities greater control over
how the programs are administered.

These programs are empowerment programs. They are based on the same
principles as the Job Training Partnership Act, which aimed to help
disadvantaged young people and dislocated workers to develop their
skills to give them an opportunity to get ahead. Empowering the poor
will strengthen families. And right now, the failure of our families is
hurting America deeply. When families fail, society failes. The anarchy
and lack of structure in our inner cities are a testament to how quickly
civilization falls apart when the family foundation cracks. Children
need love and discipline. They need mothers and fathers. A welfare check
is not a husband. The state is not a father. It is from parents that
children learn how to behave in society; it is from parents above all
that children come to understand values and themselves as men and women,
mothers and fathers.

And for those concerned about children growing up in poverty, we should
know this: marriage is probably the best anti-poverty program of all.
Among families headed by married couples today, there is a poverty rate
of 5.7%. But 33.4% of families headed by a single mother are in poverty
today.

Nature abhors a vacuum. Where there are no mature, responsible men
around to teach boys how to be good men, gangs serve in their place. In
fact, gangs have become a surrogate family for much of a generation of
inner-city boys. I recently visited with some former gang members in
Albuquerque, NM. In a private meeting, they told me why they had joined
gangs. These teenage boys said that gangs gave them a sense of security.
They made them feel wanted, and useful. They got support from their
friends. And they said, "It was like having a family." "Like family" --
unfortunately, that says it all.

The system perpetuates itself as these young men father children whom
they have no intention of caring for, by women whose welfare checks
support them. Teenage girls, mired in the same hopelessness, lack
sufficient motive to say no to this trap.

Answers to out problems won't be easy.

We can start by dismantling a welfare system that encourages dependency
and subsidizes broken families. We can attach conditions -- such as
school attendence, or work -- to welfare. We can limit the time a
recipient gets benefits. We can stop penalizing marriage for welfare
mothers. We can enforce child support payments.

Ultimately, however, marriage is a moral issue that requires cultural
consensus, and the use of social sanctions. Bearing babies irresponsibly
is, simply, wrong. Failing to support children one has fathered is
wrong. We must be unequivocal about this.

It doesn't help matters when prime time TV has Murphy Brown -- a
character who supposedly epitomizes today's intelligent, highly paid,
professional woman -- mocking the importance of fathers, by bearing a
child alone, and calling it just another "lifestyle choice."

I know it is not fashionable to talk about moral values, but we need to
do it. Even though our cultural leaders in Hollywood, network TV, the
national newspapers routinely jeer at them, I think that most of us in
this room know that some things are good, and other things are wrong.
Not it's time to make the discussion public.

It's time to talk again about family, hard work, integrity, and personal
responsibility. We cannot be embarrassed out of our belief that two
parents, married to each other, are better in most cases for children
than one. That honest work is better than handouts -- or crime. That we
are our brothers' keepers. That it's worth making an effort, even when
the rewards aren't immediate.

So I think the time has come to renew our public commitment to our
Judeo-Christian values -- in our churches and synagogues, our civic
organizations and our schools. We are, as our children recite each
morning, "one nation under God." That's a useful framework for
acknowledging a duty and an authority higher than our own pleasures and
personal ambitions.

If we lived more thoroughly by these values, we would live in a better
society. For the poor, renewing these values will give people the
strength to help themselves by acquiring the tools to achieve
self-sufficiency, a good education, job training, and property. Then
they will move from permanent dependence to dignified independence.

Shelby Steele in his great book _The Content of Our Character_ writes:
	"Personal responsibility is the brick and mortar of power. The
responsible person knows that the quality of his life is something that
he will have to make inside the limits of his fate. ... The quality of
his life will pretty much reflect his efforts."

I believe that the Bush Administration's empowerment agenda will help
the poor gain that power, by creating opportunity, and letting people
make the choices that free citizens must make.

Though our hearts have been pained by the events in Los Angeles, we
should take this tragedy as an opportunity for self-examination and
progress. So let the national debate roar on. I, for one, will join it.
The President will lead it. The American people will participate in it.
And as a result, we will become an even stronger nation.
*** END ***
-- 
Emil Thomas Chuck (Duke BME '93)		eyc@acpub.duke.edu
I'm too busy for my class, too busy for my clubs, too busy for my work.
I'm too busy for my mail, too busy for my news, too busy for my calls.
I'm too busy for this .sig.