Ben Sasse: belief

Transcript context

…And what’s the most — final question — the most underrated part of American government? Just the American idea. Fundamentally, we are blessed to live in an extraordinary nation where in 1787, there was a near-miraculous stew of ideas that came together to clarify, in the drafting of the Constitution, this belief in universal human dignity. We actually believe that 320 million Americans — well, we actually believe 7.2 billion people on the globe — but our primary responsibility as a government is to these 320 million people. We believe that people are created with dignity and their rights don’t come to them from government. It isn’t the benevolence of government that grants you the right to free speech, assembly, religion, press, protest, or redress of grievances. We believe that these rights are inalienable — that’s an unbelievable idea. Then from that, we build a government that exists to secure those rights. But government’s just a tool. The animating principle is this idea of universal human dignity, and it’s intoxicating and we don’t celebrate it enough. These are the rules for questions. Just to be clear, they are my rules, they are not the senator’s rules. First, no speeches; I will cut you off. Second, no partisan questions or statements. And third, no questions on pending legislation. If you ask, we will simply pass over you again. Those are my restrictions, not the senator’s.…

Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.