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That's why I've been fighting to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and the minimum wage. The UCC is still listening. The fundamentals we use to measure economic strength are whether we are living up to that fundamental promise that has made this country great - a promise that is the only reason I am standing here tonight. It's a promise that says each of us has the freedom to make of our own lives what we will, but that we also have the obligation to treat each other with dignity and respect. It should ensure opportunity not just for those with the most money and influence, but for every American who's willing to work.
Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. That we can tuck in our children at night and know that they are fed and clothed and safe from harm. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. These challenges are not all of government's making.
I thought of the 900 men and women - sons and daughters, husbands and wives, friends and neighbors, who won't be returning to their own hometowns. And I heard Reverend Jeremiah A. My faith teaches me that I can sit in church and pray all I want, but I won't be fulfilling God's will unless I go out and do the Lord's work. Just as Muslims do not fit a crude stereotype, America is not the crude stereotype of a self-interested empire. And yet Al Qaeda chose to ruthlessly murder these people, claimed credit for the attack, and even now states their determination to kill on a massive scale.
And we cannot ignore the very real concerns of Americans who are not worried about illegal immigration because they are racist or xenophobic, but because they fear it will result in lower wages when they're already struggling to raise their families. Change means a tax code that doesn't reward the lobbyists who wrote it, but the American workers and small businesses who deserve it. And I will not settle for an America where some kids don't have that chance. The third source of tension is our shared interest in the rights and responsibilities of nations on nuclear weapons. This is important because no development strategy can be based only upon what comes out of the ground, nor can it be sustained while young people are out of work. And while America in the past has focused on oil and gas in this part of the world, we now seek a broader engagement.
And just as Lieutenant Kerry did not hesitate to risk his life to protect the men who served with him in Vietnam, President Kerry will not hesitate one moment to use our military might to keep America safe and secure. A nation of whiners? Tell that to the proud auto workers at a Michigan plant who, after they found out it was closing, kept showing up every day and working as hard as ever, because they knew there were people who counted on the brakes that they made. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation. This same story can be told by people from South Africa to South Asia; from Eastern Europe to Indonesia.
Thank you.