Rep. Lloyd Doggett
Commencement Address at Texas State University, San Marcos
December 15, 2007
It’s a great day. Congratulations to each graduate, to those here who
provided the encouragement and support -- who fill these stands to the
rafters, to the distinguished faculty, and to the Administration of
Texas State University on another achievement.
Commencement speakers often offer advice about the qualities and skills
needed for success. But given what you have accomplished to get here
today, it looks to me like you have already charted a successful course.
Instead of giving you advice, let me seek it. And let me urge you to
continue giving your advice so that together we can successfully deal
with certain major challenges of our day.
You have benefited from the scholarship here on this beautiful campus,
deep in the heart of Texas, learning at an institution that is an
important part of meeting these challenges. Now, strengthened by the
investment made in you by this institution, your family and friends, and
the investment that you have made in yourselves, it is your time to
assume more personal responsibility for helping to resolve these
problems.
I am telling you in advance that I will be discussing three challenges
so you can do a countdown in your head, calculating just how much closer
you will be to your graduation parties.
Engaging the World
First, I will discuss how we as Americans engage the rest of the world.
I believe that your engagement has already begun with the international
students, who have come to Texas State. We call it Texas State, but it
really could be called “Texas International.” Today, we have successful
graduates from around the world--Azerbaijan to Thailand, from China,
India, Japan, Mexico and many others. As far as I am concerned, American
higher education is the very best export our country offers—it conveys
essential values about what America represents, our respect for
diversity and disagreement, and our commitment to encouraging each
individual to achieve his or her full individual potential.
But our engagement with the world means that we Americans must learn as
well as teach. I believe that those same international students can give
us greater insight into their native lands, just as those whose parents
may have been born elsewhere but have built their homes and businesses
here can offer bridges of understanding to other parts of the world.
And with so much international goodwill that America enjoyed after 9/11
having been squandered, we could use some bridges. A recent 47-nation
Pew poll found global public opinion increasingly wary of the United
States. This survey revealed that “Over the last five years, America’s
image has plummeted throughout much of the world, including sharp drops
in favorability among traditional allies . . . .” And in many other
places, America’s standing is in the single digits.
We need to ask ourselves, “Why?” That is a question that my
granddaughter cannot stop asking “Why? Why? Why?” Well, don’t stop now,
just because you are no longer a toddler or a student. It is never
unpatriotic to ask “why.”
Just as the Renaissance brought about the process of investigating
nature with our own senses, so too should you continue to question
authority with your own mind, rejecting the glib answers we so often
hear.
Of course, internationally, we must continue to have a strong military,
and, where necessary, we must be willing to apply military force. I
particularly salute those graduates, who are veterans or who are serving
now, who -- like those accompanying me here last month in our San Marcos
Veterans day parade -- put their lives on the line for our security.
And we must continue to expand initiatives like the Texas State ALERRT
Center, which trains police officers, school administrators, members of
the National Guard, and your fellow Criminal Justice students about
preventing and containing violence wherever and from whatever it occurs.
When I was a young boy, watching two television shows was almost a
family ritual. One was “Gunsmoke” and the other, was named for a card
its hero carried --“Have Gun, Will Travel.” I saw those programs weekly
in black and white, and they were pretty black and white—good guys
taming the frontier by reining in various bad guys. These villains left
little room for nuance. The two-dimensional characters in these programs
were either “for us or against us,” to borrow a phrase from our
President. Today, though, in a high definition television world, I don’t
believe that old black and white version works too well.
Surely, if we have learned anything from the tragedy that is Iraq, it is
that military might, no matter how great, lacks the power to achieve
some of our most important objectives. And when that military might is
projected on essentially a go-it-alone basis, Americans do much of the
dying and most all of the paying.
In Iraq, in addition to the blood of the brave, that price tag is $3
billion dollars every single week, week after week, month after month.
That’s a lot, but what does it mean? We all have a friend or relative
who has battled cancer. Well, take all the money we are spending to try
to cure it through the National Cancer Institute—that is how much money
we spend in Iraq in two weeks. Put another way, what we spend in one
week in Iraq would fund the Pell Grants for a year of college for 1.2
million more students.
Basic principles of law and order have applicability among nations, just
as they do among citizens in a small town. In this dangerous world,
sometimes it is necessary to flash that card “have gun, will travel,”
and hit the road, but overdependence upon packing the biggest gun and
having the fastest draw with a first strike sets a pattern for other
nations to seek safety the same way, like by building a nuclear bomb,
and can create a formula for international anarchy.
True security means working together with nations, large and small. It
means that we must be wise enough to rely on America’s other strengths
to rid the world of dangers rather than unilaterally imposing our will
by force in circumstances that both unite our enemies and divide our
natural allies.
America needs your education and effort to help build a peace that keeps
our families truly secure.
Meeting the Global Warming Challenge
While terrorism remains an immediate concern, “climate change” or
“global warming” represents one of our most significant long-term
security challenges. Doing as little about this critical issue in the
next seven years as we have done in the last seven will mean that the
polar bear is far from the only endangered species.
On Monday, Al Gore and the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change accepted a Nobel Peace Prize for their important work on this
growing threat. As Gore warned in his acceptance speech: “The earth has
a fever and the fever is rising.” Although you may have already begun to
forget how to conjugate an irregular verb in the pluperfect tense or how
to integrate using trigonometric substitutions – you probably will not
forget tubing down the San Marcos River and the crystal-clear springs
and stately cypress at the river’s headwaters. We cannot let such
treasures succumb to the threat of global warming.
With the Texas State River Systems Institute and Edwards Aquifer Center,
this campus is already one of the best places in the world to study
aquatic ecosystems and species. Here is the place to plan for the impact
of increasing global temperatures that will lead to droughts and water
scarcity, causing a decrease in the quality of water and increased
conflicts over water allocation. Climate change that without a
significant reduction in pollution will submerge Galveston and Padre
Island and make other significant changes in the Texas coastline.
When it comes to greenhouse gases, our country is the world’s leading
polluter, and our State is our country’s leading polluter. If we are to
avoid catastrophe, we need to begin here and now. We have the potential
to find job-producing technologies that will respond to this challenge.
America needs your education and energy. The science is clear; it is the
will for action to respond to that science which is lacking. That is a
place where each of you can help make a difference.
Meeting the Healthcare Challenge
As important as a healthy planet and a secure nation are, ensuring your
own health is proving for many to be a more immediate challenge. Too
many of our neighbors, and, statistically, many of you here, confront
struggles obtaining affordable, quality medical care. Here at Texas
State, the College of Health Professions and the Health Resource Center
are doing important work. In Texas, we have the world’s top medical
science, but we also have the most expensive and one of the most
deficient ways of accessing that science anywhere. Texas has the dubious
distinction of having a greater proportion of our children with no
health insurance than anywhere in the country. A healthy body, like an
educated mind, is an opportunity in which all Americans should be
permitted to share.
While it’s wonderful that we have top notch healthcare technology here
in Texas, it might as well be located on the moon for the many who
cannot access it--the children of the working poor, those who sob with
an earache, moan with an abscessed tooth, or lack antibiotics for strep
throat. It is no consolation to the woman who has been diagnosed with
cancer, but now worries she cannot cover the cost of effective
treatment. Not having access to care is the difference between life and
death. As one expert noted, “A woman without health insurance who gets a
breast cancer diagnosis is at least 40 percent more likely to die.”
We need a healthcare system that permits every single one of you to
pursue your hopes and dreams without worrying – will this job provide
healthcare? Will I be able to find insurance if I pursue my dream of
starting my own business? Can I become an artist or a musician, or chart
a new career path and still obtain the healthcare I need?”
We should help build an America that recognizes that we all have a stake
in healthy and productive citizens--where the daughter of a doctor and a
daughter of teacher, soldier, or even a liberal arts major, have equal
access to life-saving medicine.
Conclusion
As you transition from the dorm room to the board room, from your
leadership on campus to becoming leaders in your community, or perhaps
from this hilly campus to Capitol Hill, know that it is not about being
somebody, but it is about doing something.
How can you make a difference? Continue to educate yourself about the
issues. Join with others who share your concern. Together you are
stronger and have a more powerful voice. More than just Facebook, spread
the word face-to-face through your friends and relatives. We have many
future teachers here—teach your class first, but also teach your
community. Making a difference doesn’t mean “going along to get along.”
It means getting it right.
Whether you are graduating with high honors, or honored to be
graduating, you will honor this institution’s long line of distinguished
graduates when you join them in giving back to our community.
I remain hopeful about America, hopeful about our ability to overcome
these challenges because I am hopeful about you, that you have learned,
that you care, that you will make a difference.
Your role does not have to be as large as this institution’s most famous
alumnus, President Lyndon Johnson, to make a big difference. In remarks
to college students working for the government in the summer of 1965,
President Johnson said that “the cause of America is a revolutionary
cause. Neither you nor I are willing to accept the tyranny of poverty,
nor the dictatorship of ignorance, nor the despotism of ill health, nor
the oppression of bias and prejudice and bigotry. We want change. We
want progress. And we aim to get it.”
Go now, give back, and be that change.
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