Speech #1030001937

I would also suggest that the basic underlying lessons of the Girl Scout Manual of 1913 apply directly to how America got sick and why American civilization Is decaying. and you cannot renew American civilization until we have the moral courage to go back and to insist on these core lessons of how people ought to behave and what people ought to do. Let me say that civilization can be learned. and American civilization must be learned. In fact. it is the key to assimilating immigrants. Let me say again that the key challenge in America with people who come from all over the world is not how many arrive but how fast do they become American. If we go back to being a country that is truly a melting pot. a country in which every immigrant learns English. a country in which everybody becomes habitually and. by practice. an American. a country in which we integrate and assimilate and bring together everyone. then. frankly. there is no worry about immigration. They are just new Americans with new energy and new drive and new hopes and new dreams. creating new wealth and new prosperity. and they make the whole country stronger. It is only when the assimilating and integrating capacities of America start to slow down. it is only when we fail to teach the principles and practices and habits of being American that there has to be any kind of concern about immigrants. But that concern is not just about immigrants. Note the problems that we have in teen gangs. Teenage gangs are a function of the failure to structure schools. government. the law. and society. to teach American civilization.