Discussion on Freedom and Government Role

Well, I think it's time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were

intended for us by the Founding Fathers. Not too long ago, two friends of mine

were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro.

And in the midst of his story, one of my friends turned to the other and said,

we don't know how lucky we are. And the Cuban stopped and said, how lucky you are.

I had some place to escape to. And in that sentence, he told us the entire story.

If we lose freedom here, there's no place to escape to. This is the last stand on

earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no

other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and

the 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 increasingly we have

to choose between a left or right. Well, I'd like to suggest there is no such

thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down. Man's old age dream,

the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order,

or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their

sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for

security have embarked on this downward course. In this vote harvesting time,

they use terms like the great society. Or as we were told a few days ago by the

president, we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the

people. But they've been a little more explicit in the past. And among

themselves, and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print,

these are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say,

the Cold War will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.

Another voice says the profit motive has become outmoded. It must be replaced by

the incentives of the welfare state. Or our traditional system of individual

freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century.

Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is

outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader.

And he says he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him

by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he

knows is best. And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania, another articulate

spokesman, defines liberalism as meeting the material needs of the masses through

the full power of centralized government. Well, I for one resented when a

representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this

country, as the masses. This is a term we haven't applied to ourselves in America.

But beyond that, the full power of centralized government, this was the very

thing the founding fathers sought to minimize. They knew that governments

don't control things. A government can't control the economy without controlling

people. And they know when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and

coercion to achieve its purpose. They also knew those founding fathers that

outside of its legitimate functions, government does nothing as well or as

economically as the private sector of the economy.

Not too long ago, a judge called me here in Los Angeles.

He told me of a young woman who'd come before him

for a divorce.

She had six children, was pregnant with her seventh.

Under his questioning, she revealed her husband

was a laborer earning $250 a month.

She wanted the divorce to get an $80 raise.

She's eligible for $330 a month

in the Aid to Dependent Children program.

She got the idea from two women in her neighborhood

who'd already done that very thing.

Yet anytime you and I question the schemes

of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against

their humanitarian goals.

They say, we're always against things,

we're never for anything.

Well, the trouble with our liberal friends

is not that they're ignorant.

It's just that they know so much that isn't so.

Now...

Now...

Now...

Now...

Now...

Now...

Now, without coming to the conclusion

the fat man got that way by taking advantage

of the thin one.

So they're going to solve all the problems

of human misery through government and government planning.

Well now, if government planning and welfare

had the answer, and they've had almost 30 years of it,

shouldn't we expect government to read the score

to us once in a while?

Shouldn't they be telling us about the decline each year

in the number of people needing help?

The reduction in the need for public housing?

But the reverse is true.

Each year the need grows greater,

the program grows greater.

We were told four years ago that 17 million people

went to bed hungry each night.

Well, that was probably true.

They were all on a diet.

But now we're told that 9.3 million families

in this country are poverty stricken

on the basis of earning less than $3,000 a year.

Welfare spending 10 times greater than it was

in the dark depths of the depression.

We're spending $45 billion on welfare.

Now do a little arithmetic and you'll find

that if we divided the $45 billion up equally

among those 9 million poor families,

we'd be able to give each family $4,600 a year.

And this added to their present income

should eliminate poverty.

Yes.

Yes.

Direct aid to the poor, however,

is only running about $600 per family.

It would seem that some place there must be some overhead.

So now we declare war on poverty

or you too can be a Bobby Baker.

Now do they honestly expect us to believe

that if we add $1 billion to the $45 billion we're spending,

one more program to the 30-odd we have,

and remember this new program doesn't replace any,

it just duplicates existing programs.

Do they believe that poverty

is suddenly going to disappear by magic?

Well, in all fairness, I should explain

there is one part of the new program that isn't duplicated.

This is the youth feature.

We're now going to solve the dropout problem,

juvenile delinquency,

by reinstituting something like the old CCC camps.

And we're going to put our young people in these camps.

But again, we do some arithmetic

and we find that we're going to spend each year

just on room and board for each young person we help,

$4,700 a year.

We can send them to Harvard for $2,700.

Of course, don't get me wrong.

I'm not suggesting Harvard

is the answer to juvenile delinquency.

But seriously, what are we doing to those we seek to help?