by WorldTribune Staff, July 9, 2017
U.S President Donald Trump, in a landmark speech in Poland last week, challenged the West to confront threats to its values posed not only by radical Islam but by uncontrolled “government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people.”
“Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield — it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls.”
In front of the Warsaw Uprising Monument, Trump said: “[As] the Polish experience reminds us, the defense of the West ultimately rests not only on means but also on the will of its people to prevail and be successful and get what you have to have.
“The fundamental question of our time is whether the West has the will to survive. Do we have the confidence in our values to defend them at any cost? Do we have enough respect for our citizens to protect our borders? Do we have the desire and the courage to preserve our civilization in the face of those who would subvert and destroy it?
“We can have the largest economies and the most lethal weapons anywhere on Earth, but if we do not have strong families and strong values, then we will be weak and we will not survive. If anyone forgets the critical importance of these things, let them come to one country that never has. Let them come to Poland.”
On radical Islam and open border policies, Trump said:
“We are fighting hard against radical Islamic terrorism, and we will prevail. We cannot accept those who reject our values and who use hatred to justify violence against the innocent.
“This continent no longer confronts the specter of communism.
“We are confronted by another oppressive ideology – one that seeks to export terrorism and extremism all around the globe. America and Europe have suffered one terror attack after another. We’re going to get it to stop.
“During a historic gathering in Saudi Arabia, I called on the leaders of more than 50 Muslim nations to join together to drive out this menace which threatens all of humanity. We must stand united against these shared enemies to strip them of their territory and their funding, and their networks, and any form of ideological support that they may have.”
Trump went on to mention June 2, 1979, the day when “one million Poles gathered around Victory Square for their very first mass with their Polish Pope, that day, every communist in Warsaw must have known that their oppressive system would soon come crashing down.
“They must have known it at the exact moment during Pope John Paul II’s sermon when a million Polish men, women, and children suddenly raised their voices in a single prayer. A million Polish people did not ask for wealth. They did not ask for privilege. Instead, one million Poles sang three simple words: ‘We Want God.’
“As I stand here today before this incredible crowd, this faithful nation, we can still hear those voices that echo through history. Their message is as true today as ever. The people of Poland, the people of America, and the people of Europe still cry out ‘We want God.’ ”
Another highlighted passage from Trump’s speech:
“Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger – one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles: the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies.
“Americans, Poles, and the nations of Europe value individual freedom and sovereignty. We must work together to confront forces, whether they come from inside or out, from the South or the East, that threaten over time to undermine these values and to erase the bonds of culture, faith and tradition that make us who we are. If left unchecked, these forces will undermine our courage, sap our spirit, and weaken our will to defend ourselves and our societies.
“But just as our adversaries and enemies of the past learned here in Poland, we know that these forces, too, are doomed to fail if we want them to fail. And we do, indeed, want them to fail. They are doomed not only because our alliance is strong, our countries are resilient, and our power is unmatched. Through all of that, you have to say everything is true. Our adversaries, however, are doomed because we will never forget who we are. And if we don’t forget who are, we just can’t be beaten. Americans will never forget. The nations of Europe will never forget.”
Energy writer David Blackmon, said the speech “encapsulates the core beliefs of the Trump Presidency: that America is a great nation, that the culture that made it great will ultimately prevail. … These are the core beliefs of a man and his supporters who truly love America, beliefs that are complete anathema to everyone who has succumbed to leftist doctrine.”
Blackmon wrote at DBdailyUpdate that the speech stands in sharp contrast to the belief system of the radical Left that have reacted violently to Trump’s surprise 2016 electoral victory and pose perhaps the greatest threat to his success:
“The people who populate today’s radical left are by and large people under the age of 40 who bought into the neo-marxist, Alinskyite view of American history that has been taught on most college campuses since the early 1980s. … In this view, America is the world’s Original Sin, the cause of all problems in the third world, an inherently racist, homophobic, Islamaphobic and every other kind of -phobic they can come up with society, and because of this, Americans do not deserve the prosperity and freedoms we have enjoyed.”
Trump said: “We write symphonies. We pursue innovation. We celebrate our ancient heroes, embrace our timeless traditions and customs, and always seek to explore and discover brand-new frontiers.
“We reward brilliance. We strive for excellence, and cherish inspiring works of art that honor God.
“We treasure the rule of law and protect the right to free speech and free expression.
“We empower women as pillars of our society and of our success. We put faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, at the center of our lives. And we debate everything. We challenge everything. We seek to know everything so that we can better know ourselves.
“And above all, we value the dignity of every human life, protect the rights of every person, and share the hope of every soul to live in freedom.
“That is who we are. Those are the priceless ties that bind us together as nations, as allies, and as a civilization.
“And if we fail to preserve it, it will never, ever exist again. So we cannot fail.
“Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values. We did not and we will not. We will never back down.”
Blackmon warned that the Left will never relent in opposing Trump’s agenda: “They could have lived with another Republican president who feared the fake news media and whose policies were just slower versions of Democrat priorities; they can’t live with Donald Trump.
“Those on the radical left had come so close to their goal that they could taste it. … But the vote did not go their way, and the winner was a man who symbolizes everything they hate: success, wealth, love of country, support for the culture and way of life that made America a great nation to begin with. It wasn’t just that a Republican had won, it was that the wrong kind of Republican had won: a Republican who had no fear of them or their propaganda agents in the national news media; a Republican who promised to aggressively go about reversing every policy implemented during the last eight years, and has already made great progress in doing so; a Republican who promised to work to take America out of the international redistributionist scams entered into by Obama, and has already done so; a Republican who promised to replace the feckless Obama policy of “leading from behind” with the renewal of real American leadership in international relations, and has already done so.”
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