GOP Sen. Marco Rubio Delivers “A Time for Choosing” Speech for this Generation – Complete Video 8/2/11

Here is complete video of GOP Sen. Marco Rubio giving a speech to the 2011 National Conservative Student Conference (Young America Foundation) earlier this week. You could say, Rubio’s speech was “A Time for Choosing” speech for today’s generation. He built it off Ronald Reagan’s great “A Time for Choosing” Speech delivered on October 27, 1964.

Rubio opened his speech by joking, “I doubt I’ll be able to give you the best speech you’ve ever heard tonight. My teleprompter got left at the office, so I’m going to have to wing it.”

Rubio told the young conservatives that previous generations of Americans made choices to be an exceptional nation. He quoted from Ronald Reagan as a voice that came out of the wilderness and said the U.S. could be great again – only to be laughed at by many on the Left and their cohorts in the media. Yet, Reagan persisted, knowing the American people had it in them to do great things.

Rubio spoke of the exceptional nature of America – not that the United States is the possessor of values that do not exist, or have not existed elsewhere. But he pointed out that America was founded as a place where certain universal truths and values can be lived out and practiced freely:

“Reagan knew a fundamental truth – that is this notion of wanting to accomplish your God-given ambition and your God-given dreams was not an American principle, not an American dream – it was a universal one. The thing that distinguished us from the rest of the world is that we created a place here where it was possible. America is a place where people would come from all over the world because they couldn’t be who God meant them to be in the nation of their birth. And that is literally what we are as a people – A collection of go-getters from all over the planet that could not accomplish their dreams or their hopes or fulfill their God-given ambition in the nation of their birth. But here, nothing could stand in their way.”

Rubio argued that just as Ronald Reagan led a generation of Americans in “a time for choosing” – to choose freedom and liberty, we are now at another juncture in American History where today’s generation must choose “whether we want to continue to be exceptional – or are we prepared to be like everyone else.”

To deal with the nation’s debt crisis, Rubio argued that we don’t need more taxes – “we need more taxpayers” through a growing, expanding economy.

Rubio spoke to the kind of “Change” Obama and the Democrats are trying to bring to America:

“You see much of the world has chosen to have a Government that’s very involved in their economic lives. I will confess this is kind of a simplistic view of it, but, I think an accurate one, nonetheless. Much of the world has chosen to have a Government very active in their economic lives – that means a Government that guarantees you all sorts of things. But in exchange for those guarantees, there are things you have to give up – primarily, your economic freedoms. Literally, your ability to open up a business out of the spare bedroom of your home; the ability to draw up a business plan on the back of a napkin and go out and max your credit card because you believe so much in this idea.

Much of the world has chose that economic model, and they’ve seemed relatively happy until recently, when even Europe figured out that their high taxes and high regulations could not sustain what they had created. What you give up is the vibrancy of the American Economy.

I think what Reagan had argued – and what we should argue today – is that that’s fine for the rest of the world to choose that, and that if that’s the kind of country you want to live in – a place where the Government guarantees you certain economic results – there are so many places in the world you can move to. But there should be at least one country on earth where you can open up a business in the spare bedroom of your home; there should be at least one country on earth where you can open up a business after drawing a plan on the back of a cocktail napkin; there should be at least one country on earth where a worker can become an owner; where an employee can become an employer. There should be at least one nation on earth where these things are possible. For the last 230 some odd years, that country has been the United States, and we shouldn’t change that now.”

Rubio closed with these stirring words:

“I hope that in the next months that lie ahead, and through the elections of 2012, the American People will speak with a very simple and clear voice – that we’ve seen the two choices. We understand the hard work and sacrifices that lie ahead. But we still choose to be great. We still choose to be special. We still choose to stand apart. We still choose to inspire the world.”

What a leader we have in the making.

H/T Brian B.