From the founding fathers, to the American Civil War, to the oration of Lincoln, to the willingness in the First and Second World Wars, to 50 years of sustaining the Cold War to defeat the Soviet empire, to the civil rights movement that insisted that all Americans had the right to vote, the right to work, the right to buy a house. Over and over, for 220 years, and if you go back to the Colonial Period for another 150 years before that, there has been a constant, daily effort to create greater freedom, greater safety, and greater prosperity. It is a struggle which will never end. I have often wondered when this fight over Internet Governance would end. Thanks to Newt, I now realize that it never will.
Evil is always possible.
People always are willing to seize power to control and exploit others. The struggle for freedom is eternal, and you retain only by being willing in each generation to do your best. We are very lucky. We stand on the shoulders of generations who have bled, worked, thought, argued, fought passionately in politics as well as war. I think the challenge to us is to lift our eyes from the bickering of Washington, the negativism of the elite media, all the temptations of political schism, to recreate for the American people the dream that all of us can be free and safe and prosperous, and to offer policies that work, based on principles that are sound, based on values that are universal.