Beatrice1000
Resource Specialist
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1179
Location: Minneapolis, MN
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 Posted: Sun May 01, 2005 3:08 pm Post subject: Zell Miller speaks out - 4/26/05 |
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This is a long article by Zell, but such a good read. I hope he writes more books and gets as many speaking engagements as he can – he has so much to say to America:
(a few excerpts)
| Quote: | 4/26/05 – “Culture, etc.,” Washington Times: ZELL MILLER
Former Sen. Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat, recalls the reasons that led him to take his stand with President Bush in the 2004 election in his new book, "A Deficit of Decency" (Stroud & Hall, Macon, Ga.). Author of the 2003 best-seller, "A National Party No More," Mr. Miller is now retired to his family home in Young Harris, Ga.
PART I – Unfamiliar Ground
In January 2004, an old friend, former Montana Gov. Marc Racicot, the chairman of the Bush-Cheney campaign, called and asked if I would meet with him and Ken Mehlman,the campaign manager. We were to meet at the Republican National Committee headquarters on First Street. I thought I knew the location, but since this Democrat had never been to the RNC headquarters before, I ended up going to the wrong building. "Can you tell me how to get to the national Republican headquarters?" I asked the security guard. I must admit, never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined asking such a question. <…..>
PART II – Timeless Principles
The Apostle Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. <…> Paul didn't have to be careful when he wrote, "Let us behave decently." In those few words, he left nowhere to hide, no wiggle room. Paul gave us a moral compass for navigating our homes, our communities, our world. I believe America has been struck by a profound and debilitating lack of decency, and it's making us weak. …. What I'm talking about is a prolonged, sustained and seemingly unending age in which a lack of decency has become the norm. It's like the difference between a dry spell and a drought. One is noticed. The other is devastating. High hopes have been deflated by low standards, and the result is a nation starving for decency. America has a bad case of moral scurvy, and nobody seems to have a cure. As a country, we're drowning and we don't even know it. We're numb and we can't even feel it. <….>
PART III -- “Faith in Freedom”
….Thirty years later, the post-Vietnam theorists were still stuck in the quagmire of Cambodia. And their tactics were the same. They hoped to achieve their victory by pulling down the president from within rather than defeating the enemy abroad. They agreed that "regime change" was needed, but regime change here at home. Their battle cry was "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time." …. Again and again, they came up with ways to blame America. …It was the last gasp of the post-Vietnam defeatism playing itself out on the national stage. <…..> The voters' answer Nov. 2, in as resounding a manner as a free people can deliver, was to say that America is what is right with the world. <….> The worst aspect of this post-Vietnam mentality was a paralysis of doubt, ingrained in every aspect of America. But when it came to our enemies, they were afforded the benefit from all doubt. By saying no to the wrong ideology at the wrong time, America dodged a bullet, and a failed dogma is doomed to wither and die on its poisoned vine. The worst belief of America's past half century has been neutered. <….>
Holding the course for freedom is hard. But with all I've learned from study, age and experience, I believe, with every fiber of my body, that there comes a time when a civilization has to choose between good and evil, between freedom and tyranny. <…>
You see, the line between liberty and license is thin and gray. And without some drastic changes in the way we act, serve and govern, it won't be long before license prevails over liberty. The framers of our Constitution were, in the eyes of world history, betting the farm that if given the chance, we, who are created in the image of God, would recognize the beauty and strength of liberty and restraint. Without each of us recognizing and reaching for our own responsibility, America won't work. |
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