A Rhetorical Analysis of Evil Empire Speech by Donald Reagan

A well-known “Evil Empire Speech” given on March 3, 1983, by the fortieth President of the United States Donald Reagan addresses The National Association of Evangelicals that is known for its contribution to humanitarian and spiritual work in America. The president focuses on the discussion of the most urgent social issues that need to have consideration from both legal and spiritual perspectives and emphasizes the importance of values pursued by religion for the formation of a strong and conscious American society. In “Address to the National Association of Evangelicals” or the so-known as “Evil Empire Speech,” Ronald Reagan states that religion and belief in God should not only serve as a basis for the formation of morality in American society but grow to be the central principle of government of the state covering such concerns as the worth of a human life, freedom of speech, and democracy.

1st, Reagan claims that religion encloses the prior guidelines and moral values that need to govern the law but not vice versa. He states that “when our founding fathers passed the First Amendment, they sought to defend churches from government interference (Reagan 20).” It is crucial that government in no way tried to establish any limitations for religious beliefs held by individuals of America or to impose its own guidelines, considerations, or visions of write or wrong. On the contrary, all American governments and presidents often attempted to organize their policies in accordance to the key religious principles and “never intended to construct a wall of hostility amongst government and the concept of religious belief itself (Reagan 20).” An example of the issues the consideration of which on the governmental level ought to call for their evaluation from the perspective of religion and morality is the dilemma of abortions. The president states that establishment and subsidizing of a network of clinics that supply birth manage drugs and devices to underage girls with out informing their parents is against the rules of morality for a number of factors. First, all parents must have the correct to be aware of the critical events in lives of their young children and avoid them from making crucial mistakes that could negatively influence their complete future lives. Second, considering that it has not been proved that a fetus is not a human getting, the latter must be viewed as the one possessing the identical “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (Reagan 25)” as all individuals do.

Second, in his speech, Raegan states that American government has constantly viewed all men and women as equal, regardless of their religious views, and by no means intended “to discriminate against religious speech (Reagan 23).” Even though there are such instances as the one that occurred in the Lubbock school when discrimination of religious college groups was legally justified, the government does its best to supply freedom of religious speech for all people on all levels of social interaction. For instance, the president emphasizes the concept that prayer must be restored in public schools and students should be allowed to express and discuss their religious views freely without worry of getting discriminated of humiliated by other men and women and to know that they might receive protection from the government.

Ronald Raegan also draws the audience’s attention to the fact that religion in basic and belief in God of every single American in distinct, construct the basis for the notion of democracy and are the major elements that preserve the state strong and prosperous. He claims that America “is in the midst of a spiritual awakening and a moral renewal (Reagan 31)” and the process of the government is to provide assistance to this process. As something in the world has a dual nature, Americans as a nation also have both excellent and evil in them, and the main task of the state’s government is to market morality and righteousness and avoid future decline and spiritual crisis of the nation finding out from the blunders of the past. To help this point of view, Reagan represents statistic information according to which “95 percent of those surveyed expressed a belief in God and a massive majority believed the Ten Commandments had actual meaning in their lives (Reagan 30).” Furthermore, most Americans express disapproval of adultery, teenage sex, pornography, abortion, drugs and alcohol consumption, and demonstrate “a deep reverence for the significance of family members ties and religious belief (Reagan 30).” Meanwhile, those nations that do not stick to the rules of religious morality and help only the tips subordinate to the class division are considered to reside in “totalitarian darkness (Reagan 45).” Until these states discover the essence of God, they will embody the world’s evil.

All the items regarded as, Ronald Reagan’s speech “Address to the National Association of Evangelicals” represents the president’s vision of the function of religion in the formation of a conscious and righteous society in America. He states that religion and government of the state and interrelated and the latter need to address religion when it goes about such concerns as the value of human lives, freedom of speech, and democracy. From the point of view of morality, parents should have the right to aid their underage daughters determine what to do in a case of an undesirable pregnancy, and a fetus ought to have the correct to live. In addition, men and women should have an chance to express their religious views freely, without worry and embarrassment. Generally, morality is 1 of the governing aspects that lay the foundation of democracy-advertising such values as freedom, liberty, and mutual respect.