((((((RUDY PING)))))
Time? I want to Tivo this one for later dissection.
I hope they show this coverage over the weekend.
I want to make up my own mind about which candidate I'll support...not have some vein-popping Rudy hater or an overly exclamatory GOP/Rudy cheerleader decide for me.
Thanks, I got CSPAN queued up and ready! :)
Why is this lib at CPAC?
The Texas Declaration of Independence, signed MARCH 2, 1836, stated:
"General Antonio Lopez Santa Ana...demanded us to deliver up our arms, which are essential to our defense-the rightful property of freemen-and formidable only to tyrannical governments...has, through its emissaries, incited the merciless savage, with the tomahawk and scalping knife, to massacre the inhabitants of our defenseless frontiers...
We fearlessly...commit the issue to the...Supreme Arbiter of the destinies of nations."
Rudy:
We have to all understand - we're a country of ideas. Ideas link us together. We're not a country of one ethnic group. We're not one religion. We're all different races.
What identifies us as Ameicans are ideas. Our ideas are wonderful ideas and the world is moving toward those ideas. When Reagan deployed cruise missiles and aimed them at the Soviets, it was unpopular with the media. TYpical president maybe wouldn't have done it because it made him unpopular.r Made his poll numbers go down.
He made those decisions because didn't just consult public opinion. He consulted his ideas.
Abraham Lincoln had to do the same thing. The war was unpopular. Draft riots in ... (some city).
Lincoln didn't have to listen to polls on CNN but he would probably have made the same decisions which was it was his goal to keep the union together and end slaver yand not to cave to public pressure to end the war. If he'd done that, we'd have two separate countries that would have gone to war with each other in the future and more lives would be lost ultimately.
When you do non-binding resolutions, you're trying to escape having to make those hard decisions.
Rudy:
NYC is one of the few cities where crime is continuing to decline and there hasn't been a year since 1994 where it hasn't declined. (WOW)
1.1 million city residents on welfare (one in 7) and I said we can't accept that. We have to look at things differently. We established a work program and said if you were getting a welfare check, you had to work 20 hours a week in exchange for the $$.
We did it because we cared about people more. I believe that our policies and programs, to give people access to ecnomic ssystem we have brings more people out of poverty than the systems of dependancy.
Rudy:
We took the welfare program and were able to remove 5-600,000 from the welfare rolls. We turned the welfare agencies into employment agencies. (Good idea)
We changed the name of the NYC welfare office to the NYC Job Center.
When people walk into those offices now, instead of walking out hopeless, a lot more than half walk out with hope. When you have more poeple in your society iwth hope, then you're a society that's growinng and not worrying about policing and broken families.
People are the best at taking care of themselves. If you just give them the necessary freedom and support to do that.
Future agenda: If I lookat America's future, I have no question that our strengths will prevail. I have no doubt that we will prevail over the Islamic terrorists. It's a serious question about how long and how many casualties along the way, but the power of ideas is so great that we know the human mind and heart is moving in our directoin.
(ALL OF THIS IS WITHOUT NOTES WHICH IS ASTOUNDING)
Rudy:
Aside from terrorism, the second most important thing I'm worried about is American education. The global economy - a China where it's more likely we'll have to economically compete with them instead of go to war with them.
Americans don't like war. We're not a war-like people. We engage in war because we have to and sometimes we wait until the last minute like WWII.
Americans want to sell you something. We want to sell you a product. Coke, Pepsi, McDonald's or technology or new medical procedures. Those are the kinds of things we want to do. We don't mind buying from China but we want to sell too.
Rudy:
How do we maintain our commanding positions? If we get this right, all the rest of this will fall into place
We have to educate our young people better than we're doing right now. It;s not just my children or your children. We need to compete in the information sciences and intricate jobs that we can do profitably and my real concern is that K-12...
When I was mayor of NYC and thought I could reform the school system. I made mistakes. I'm willing to admit that and apologize. We coldn't reform the NYC school system but it didn't have the impact that was needed to revolutionize the system.
In 1998/99, audio goes out...
CPAC is becoming a socialist convention.. for faux liberals and sneaky conservatives..
"Freedom is about authority," Giuliani said .. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority..That's a pretty sick and perverted view of 'Freedom'. It's dictatorial and un-American.http://www.alternet.org/election04/19673/
I sanyone recording the early sessions, including Rudy? I will have the balance of the schedule (1pm-end EST) available on DVD-R to trade. Thank!
After hearing Rudy follow Wayne LaPierre, I would hope that LaPierre would enter the presidential race. He certainly has a more dynamic presentation.
(I'm basing this comment on MichelleMalkin.com's blog entry about the speech.)
Good speech as far as it went.
But IMHO, Rudy missed a chance here to "hang a lantern on his problem," as the saying goes: He didn't address what he MUST KNOW are conservatives' misgivings about him. Nothing, that is, along these lines:
"You may have heard that I appointed liberal judges as mayor, but lemme tell you ..."
"Some have criticized me for suing gun manufacturers, but ..."
"As to border enforcement and illegal aliens, let's just get it out in the open. I support ..."
So I'm left wondering, wondering.
Now maybe he will address these issues, and soon. But he can't just act like the elephants aren't in the room.
Side note: Obviously I must think Rudy has great strengths, or I'd aleady have written him off. But he's gonna GET written off if he doesn't both address these kinds of issues AND do so in a substantively satisfactory way. The presidential campaign (and the presidency itself) is not a conservative PAC meeting.
Rudy has an east coast (socialist) mentality about subordinating private property rights to the good of the community. His position on environmental regulation will be a nightmare to Western states and western rugged individualism. He has no concept of what our realities are. He is totally of an urban mentality.
Say hello to your next president.