No You Can’t

U. S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Car.) was given the Americans for Prosperity (AFP) George Washington Award on October 3 at the 2009 Defending the American Dream Summit for his outstanding work to promote American freedom in the United States Senate.

Sen. DeMint’s acceptance speech focused largely on victory for American freedom, and how Americans can make it happen. “We know in this room that when the government says ‘yes we can,’ we need to stand up and say ‘no, you can’t,’” he began, with enthusiastic audience support. He continued with his assertion that government is not the answer to the problems America faces today. “We know that government is the problem; we know that the government can’t run our auto companies, our health care system, our education system. We know what works. To borrow something from Dick Armey, we need to say it more and more: it’s freedom that works in America,” Sen. DeMint said.

He continued, stating that while conservatives are outnumbered in the Senate, “we’re not outnumbered in America. When Americans stand up, things change.”

Sen. DeMint asked the audience to support the movement toward freedom by supporting candidates. “Look at every race at every level,” Sen. DeMint said. “Find a candidate, Republican or Democrat, who is talking about the importance of those principles of freedom…If you’ve got money, give money. If you’ve got time, give time. All we need is a few more to tip the balance.”

Sen. DeMint stated that any American can get involved with saving freedom be visiting his new website, SenateConservatives.com. The website is meant to help a few key conservative candidates get the money and support they need to beat their liberal counterparts.

The speech concluded with a final request for attendees to keep being involved. “The more you stand up and speak out, the more Americans are looking in and saying, we need to be a part of that,” Sen. DeMint said.

Allie Winegar Duzett is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.