I worry about a culture that devalues life and believe as your president I have an important obligation to foster and encourage respect for life in America and throughout the world.
For America to get more entangled militarily in Syria is a serious step, and we have to do so making absolutely certain that we know who we are helping; that we're not putting arms in the hands of folks who eventually could turn them against us or allies in the region.
Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity.
I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people. If America shows uncertainty and weakness in this decade, the world will drift toward tragedy. This will not happen on my watch.
I was asked in a way when Honorable Elijah Mohammed said take the step, choose between the wealth of America and the millions of dollars and the title, the ministry. So, I chose the ministry. If I was not sincere, then I would have easily went to Vietnam, boxin' exhibitions, and made a couple of cool million.
The press in America has never been stronger and never been freer and never been more vibrant, sometimes to my chagrin, and a lot of times to my delight.
America is America. It's a capitalist system. They [leaders] have enshrined that belief that profit matters more than anything else. The polarization of the society is just the resurfacing of that.
We can't afford to stand pat while the world races by. The United States of America did not become the most prosperous nation on Earth by sheer luck or happenstance. We got here because each time a generation of Americans has faced a changing world, we have changed with it. We have not feared our future; we have shaped it.