The Speech I’d Like to Hear

By Tom Quiner

The Baby Boom generation was spoiled by the likes of Martin Luther King and Ronald Reagan. These rhetorical masters knew how to give a speech. It wasn’t just their delivery which was dynamic, it was their words. It was the ideas behind the words. It was the passion behind the words and the ideas.

These men believed in grand ideas and persuaded a nation to listen and follow them through the power of one great speech after another, a forsaken art in this god-forsaken political campaign.

I saw the recent movie, “Reagan,” and was once again inspired in a way that no other politician has been able to inspire me since. Love him or hate him, he believed in grand ideas and created a movement that followed him, as did Reverend King.

I miss being inspired.

This blog was particularly harsh on Nikki Hailey, not for her speechmaking ability, which is solid enough, but her unwillingness to lead on the Life issue. Pulse Life Advocates is all about protecting innocent human life from fertilization to natural death. Donald Trump did a fine job in 2016, but has backpedaled this cycle.

By contrast, Ronald Reagan led on the life issue.

I was in college when the Roe decision was imposed on our country. I was so naive, I didn’t even know what abortion was. It was Reagan who elevated the issue in our nation’s consciousness, helping to transform the Republican Party into the pro-life party at the same time the Democratic Party began shifting toward the pro-choice position. It was Reagan who made me pro-life.

Said Reagan in a pro-life speech:

“We cannot diminish the value of one category of human life — the unborn — without diminishing the value of all human life. Despite the formidable obstacles before us, we must not lose heart.

This is not the first time our country has been divided by a Supreme Court decision that denied the value of certain human lives. The Dred Scott decision of 1857 was not overturned in a day, or a year, or even a decade.

 [T]he great majority of the American people have not yet made their voices heard, and we cannot expect them to — any more than the public voice arose against slavery — until the issue is clearly framed and presented.”

Isn’t it nice to hear a politician who can speak in sentences and present a coherent idea?

The Reagan flourish

Richard Land described a vintage Reagan moment. Mr. Land is head of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. He said Reagan was invited to speak at a gathering called the National Affairs Briefing in 1980. Said Land:

“This was a huge gathering in Reunion Arena of pro-life and pro-family activists and he said, ‘I understand that you can’t endorse me, but I’m here to endorse you’ — to thunderous applause.”

What a masterful flourish.

I had the opportunity to hear one of Reagan’s last speeches before Alzheimer’s ended his public life.

He spoke in West Branch, Iowa, for the re-dedication of the Hoover Library. His speech was excellent, although he lost his place at one point, only to bounce back and regain his footing. An indication of what was to come?

The next week, he went to the Republican convention. I happened upon the speech on YouTube and share it with you below. I found myself hanging on every word for the entire 40 minutes.

The only public figure in his league today is Italy Prime Minister, Georgia Meloni.

Pulse Life Advocates would love to hear a good pro-life speech this election cycle. And we’re tired of waiting, so we’re producing our own.

We hope to release it late next week. Our Executive Director, Maggie DeWitte, shot it today, and God willing, we’ll release it as soon as next Friday.

Pulse wants YOU to be inspired about the cause of life. We need to hear some good speeches. Since few are forthcoming, we will release our own.

Check back next week.