Senate Journal: Page 1411: Tuesday, April 25, 1995

    speech abused in this country, whether it comes from the right or the
    left, from the media or from people just speaking on their own, we
    should stand up and say no, we dont believe in preaching violence; we
    dont believe in preachin hatred; we dont believe in preaching discord.
    Words have consequences.

         If words did not have consequences, we wouldnt be here today.  Were
    here today because Patrick Henrys words had consequences, because Thomas
    Jeffersons words had consequences, because Abraham Lincolns words had
    consequences.  And these words we hear today have consequences -- the
    good ones and the bad ones, the ones that bring us together, and the
    ones that drive a wedge through our heart.

         We never know in this society today who is out there dealing with
    all kind of inner turmoil, vulnerable to being pushed over the edge if
    all they hear is a relentless clamor of hatred and division.  So let us
    preserve free speech, but let those of us who want to fight to preserve
    free speech forever in America say, we must be responsible and we will
    be.

         My fellow Americans, I come here tonight, as I went recently to the
    state legislature in Florida, to discuss the condition of our country,
    where were going in the future, and your role in that.  We know we are
    in a new and different world -- the end of the Cold War, a new and less
    organized world were living in, but one still not free of threats.  We
    know we have come to the end of an industrial age and were in an
    information age, which is less bureaucratic, more open, more dependent
    on technology, more full of opportunity but still full of its own
    problems, than the age that most of us were raised in.

         We know that we no longer need the same sort of bureaucratic,
    top-down, service-delivering, rule-making, centralized government in
    Washington that served us so well during the industrial age, because
    times have changed.  We know that with all the problems we have and all
    the opportunities we have, we have to think anew about what the
    responsibilities of our government in Washington should be, what your
    responsibility should be here at the state level, and through you to the
    local level, and what should be done more by private citizens on their
    own with no involvement from the governnment.

         We know now what the central challenge of this time is, and you can
    see it in Iowa.  You could see it today with the testimony we heard at
    the Rural Conference. We are at a 25-year low in the combined rates of
    unemployment and inflation.  Our economy has produced over 6 million new
    jobs.  But paradoxically, even in Iowa where the unemployment rate has
    dropped under 3.5 percent, most Americans are working harder today for
    the same or lower incomes that they were making 10 years ago.  And many
    Americans feel less job security even as the recovery continues.

         That is largely a function of the global economic competition, the
    fact that technology raises productivity at an almost unbelievable rate
    so fewer and fewer people can do more and more work, and that depresses

Iowa General Assembly

Index: Senate Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1995 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

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