Great American Rhetoric...

I love Rhetoric, I love hearing the speeches that have a cadence, they have a style, a certain sense of swagger but with no arrogance. I love feeling my heart pound, my mind race, and my spirit soar.
In short I love hearing a great speech. A great speech is not so much words on a paper being read by a vibrant person. A great speech is a system, kind of like one of those automatic carwashes. You go in one side and come out the other feeling totally refreshed, excited, invigorated. A good speech speaks to the soul of a man. It inspires, it lifts, it tells of the future. I've been to conferences and meetings and such where afterward a spectator says to the keynote speaker," man you could have read the phone book and I would have loved it!" Fact of the matter is, a good speech isn't a lively reading of the yellow pages. It's a combination of literary technique, hopeful content of the past present and future, and it's the reader's unrelenting emotional connection to the text. Here are some examples

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life. And yet the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.

"We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.

"...So let us begin anew--remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of weakness, and sincerity is always subject to proof. Let us never negotiate out of fear. But let us never fear to negotiate." - John F. Kennedy

Really, good rhetoric, or a good speech doesn't just require a great speaker, literary technique, or any of the things mentioned above, it requires big ideas, it requires enormous thought, it requires someone who thinks bigger than the moon and is not afraid to share it. Frankly, Im not saying the good rhetoric can solve the ills of the world, but what I am saying is that we need big thinkers, we need big doers. Im really not on a JFK kick I promise, but JFK said that we would put a man on the moon within the decade, regardless of the cost, regardless of the hardships and the challenges. He was a man with big ideas. It wasn't just about beating the Russians to space, it wasn't about colonizing the moon, in my mind there was no other purpose, and no greater purpose I might add, then to inspire the generations to come. Little boys and little girls sitting around the TV watching a man step off a lunar lander made their imaginations light up the sky. These same little boys and girls are now captains of industry, science and commerce. If for nothing else, it inspired a young boy to shoot for the moon in everything he does. And for that I am grateful for great American Rhetoric.