Utah Sen. Mike Lee on Thursday offered a Thanksgiving address expressing gratitude for the military, the volunteers who help the less fortunate, and parents who provide loving and supportive homes for their children, and said Americans have much to be thankful for.
“I know it’s going to take hard work to overcome the problems besetting our economy,” Lee said in this week's GOP address, offered on Thursday for the holiday. “But the American people never shrink from our greatest challenges. We always confront them, head on. In America freedom has never meant ‘you’re on your own.’ For us, freedom means, and has always meant, ‘we’re all in this together.’”
“I am thankful for our men and women in uniform who protect our national security and the American way of life – especially those who are serving overseas this holiday," said Lee. "You and your families are in our prayers.
“I am thankful for the untold millions of Americans who serve their communities, whether in their jobs or just in their spare time; and for those who will spend a portion of their holiday caring for those less fortunate...and I am thankful for all the moms and dads out there who work so hard to provide a loving and supportive home for their children," he said. "You are the building blocks of these United States. Everything we do begins with you."
Many individuals, families and communities are struggling in the United States, and there are too many people trapped in poverty "because the dysfunctional, big-government programs that are supposed to help them only make it harder and less likely for them, and their children, to build a better life."
It will take hard work, he said, but Americans always confront their issues, and have "always aspired to be a nation where everyone can earn a good living and, more importantly, build a good life through our free market economy and voluntary civil society… where the strong and the vulnerable alike can pursue their happiness, and find it… together."
The government also has a vital, but limited role in removing obstacles, Lee said, commending his home state as a "model of upward mobility and opportunity" that Washington D.C. will do well to follow, telling the story of Mormon founder Brigham Young's trip to rescue hundreds of men, women, and children in October 1856.
“He said he would not wait until tomorrow or the next day," said Lee. "He called for forty young men, sixty-five teams of mules or horses, and wagons loaded with provisions to leave immediately to rescue those pioneers in the wilderness."
“‘I will tell you all,’ Young said, ‘that your faith… and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you… unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching.... Go and bring in those people now on the plains.’
And now, Lee said, "millions more of our neighbors are still out on the plains," and the time has come to help, because "as Americans, we have it in our power, individually, together and where necessary through government to bring them in."
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