Kemp: Growth and Hope
Jaffo
Empower America's Highlights
Kemp: Growth and Hope
Empower America was founded to present conservatism's positive face, on the
premise that the instincts of the American people arc naturally optimistic and
that their values are predicated upon the virtues of a Judeo-Christian society
. We believe that conservatives should always be forward looking, not backward
looking; optimistic, not pessimistic; confident, not timid; and inclusive, not
exclusive.
You cannot lead anybody with pessimism. Can you imagine a quarterback going
into the huddle and saying, "Gosh, it's hot out here. Wow, those guys are big
over there. I know this play has never worked before, but I don't know what
else to do. Let's try it again." No great adventure has ever been led by
anybody who says it can't be done. Leadership has to be predicated upon
confidence in one's own abilities as well as on a belief in the inevitability
of ultimate victory.
Leadership should be centered around a world view of hope, optimism,
confidence, and the ultimate achievement of victory - for the right reason.
The Bible says overcome evil, overcome it with good. Conservatives are
obligated morally, not only to indict darkness, but to also light candles; not
only to be against that which is bad, but also to be for empowering and
unleashing the potential of the human spirit.
A great conservative named Oswald Spengler wrote Decline of the West in 1931.
He was pessimistic about democracy. He thought that democracy wouldn't survive
against fascism and Nazism. One of the founders of National Review, James
Burnham, wrote Suicide of the West. He said we were going to commit suicide
because democracy wouldn't work. Jean Francois Ravel, another leading
conservative, wrote a book in which he said democracy will turn out to be a
parenthesis in the history of the world.
Unlike these men, I'm an optimist. I always knew we would win. Sometimes,
however, it has been tough maintaining this positive outlook. I know there are
problems. Human rights abuses continue in China, the Middle East, and Bosnia
Despite these problems, democracy has defeated all of the "isms" of years past
- absolutism, fascism, Nazism, and communism.
Socialism is dead intellectually. Isolated pockets remain in Cuba, North
Korea, and in the economics departments of some of our Ivy League colleges,
but very few people today talk about socialism as an answer to poverty. In my
view, there is only one real answer to poverty: a system based on private
property, limited government, the rule of law, and entrepreneurial capitalism.
The Left has tried to make Americans feel guilty about this kind of a system -
to envy the rich, to desire a redistribution of wealth, and to centralize
power. Thanks to computers and the telecommunications revolution, much of the
world now has instantaneous access to information. This revolution will be the
ultimate undoing of modern liberalism's centralizing tendencies. Markets will
be energized, unleashed, and individualized. In this new environment, mistakes
in government policies can cause capital to flow out of a country as fast as
it flows in. All of this means that governments cannot control commerce like
they used to.
My entire political career has been dedicated to the proposition that
conservatives should be positive and optimistic and demonstrate a concern for
the underdogs in our society. It is outrageous that conservatives have allowed
liberals to steal genuinely good words - welfare, for instance. Don't think of
welfare in terms of what the Left has described. I care about the "welfare" of
my family. Welfare is not a bad word. We have allowed it to become synonymous
with government handouts . What welfare really means is the well-being of
someone. Conservatives should care about the welfare of the American people.
We should want everyone to be able to get a good education, get a job, get
married, have children, and move up the economic ladder.
People don't care how much you know until they know that you care. That is why
conservatives must be inclusive. We have got to show South Central Los Angeles
that we care about them just as much as we care about Wall Street. If our
policies will not work in East Saint Louis, how can we sell them to Russia or
Eastern Europe?
I proposed the idea of free enterprise zones for the District of Columbia in
order to enhance the city's ability to recover its middle class. Two hundred
thousand families have moved out of D.C. over the past 15 years because of
taxes, crime, and a lack of educational quality. I helped introduce a Hong
Kong-like tax code for D.C. because we have to do something radical to save
the nation's capital. Many liberals in Washington knocked my head off, saying,
'There goes Jack Kemp again, trying to help the rich, only thinking of
himself." Recently, D.C.'s Delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, introduced a Hong
Kong-like tax code for the District of Columbia. A flat, 15 percent income tax
for the whole city. She is an African-American and a liberal Democrat. She
introduced my bill for D.C. within 24 hours. She called it "The Economic
Recovery Act." With that kind of a strategy, how can the Left say that
conservatives don't care about the welfare of the poorest among us?
Liberals have shown that they care by putting people on welfare. Conservatives
have got to show people how to get off of it, and how to get into jobs and
education and the type of opportunity for which we are working. Every single
voter - regardless of color, regardless of residence - is a potential consumer
you have to communicate with. If you understand your job, your product, and
treat people with care and concern, even though they may not vote for you,
you've done a service for conservatives. If we have a good product,
conservatives ought to be able to sell it in any area and to anyone in the
United States.
Conservatism and optimism are not mutually exclusive. I believe that
successful candidates for public office in 1996 and beyond will be the ones
who embrace policies and strategies that exhibit both of these qualities. It
means advocating a message of hope and it means supporting ideas that will
spur economic growth. How you execute your campaign, how you approach
leadership, what your attitude is toward people is essential to the outcome.
Does anybody doubt that? Whether it's a huddle, a home, a business, or
politics, your attitude will determine the outcome of your endeavor. If you've
got the right outlook, the willingness to succeed, and the love in your heart
for this country, your message and the strength of your ideas will be more
powerful than any army in the history of mankind.