When I made my inauguration speech just a few weeks ago, I quoted a schoolteacher of mine, Miss Julia Coleman. She was a principal in a tiny school w… - Jimmy Carter

America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense… human rights invented America.

More than any other nation, the United States has been almost constantly involved in armed conflict and, through military alliances, has used war as a means of resolving international and local disputes. Since the birth of the United Nations, we have seen American forces involved in combat in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Greece, Grenada, Haiti, Iraq, Korea, Kosovo, Kuwait, Laos, Lebanon, Libya, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, and Vietnam, and more recently with lethal attacks in Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen, and other sovereign nations. There were no “boots on the ground” in some of these countries; instead we have used high-altitude bombers or remote-control drones. In these cases we rarely acknowledge the tremendous loss of life and prolonged suffering among people in the combat zones, even after our involvement in the conflict is ended.

When I think of Iowa, I think of people, mostly. I think about Marie Jahn, Soapy Owens, Harry Baxter, Floyd Gillotti, and literally dozens of other people who had confidence in me months and months before I was able to convince the rest of the world that I was a political figure who needed watching. Two years ago, I came to speak to the annual Jefferson-Jackson Day Dinner in Iowa at Ames. I was not the only main speaker on the program. But when the evening was over, we had won what proved to be a great national victory. I have to admit that most of my votes came from people who were sitting in the balcony in the $5 seats. And even now a lot of them are wondering whether or not they got their money's worth. But it formed a tie or a cement between myself and your State and your people that will last until the last day I live. I'm grateful to you, and since then I've had a chance to learn more about this country, more about its people. My family have become the centers of attention--there has been 2 or 3 weeks of publicity about whether Amy was playing "Three Blind Mice" or "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star" on her violin. We've had a chance to learn about the rest of the world. We'll be making a long overseas trip beginning the last of November. We'll be going down to Brazil to pick up the sweater that Rosalynn left there last spring. We'll be making several stops on the way--in Venezuela, Nigeria, Iran, Saudi Arabia to refuel our plane and to get special dealer's rates from the oil-producing countries. It's really kind of a pleasure trip for me as President. You get to do things that everyone wants to do but very seldom has a chance to accomplish. How many of you have ever had Thanksgiving Day in Lagos? See what I mean? But I hope to take to those countries an accurate image of our Nation, representing you. My family has been affected in other ways. My brother, Billy, has found another way to make a living other than growing peanuts. He can go to Canada and do a bellybuster in the swimming pool and make more money than he made all year on the farm. When I mentioned that to Billy, he said, "Well you forgot, Jimmy, that I don't know how to swim." But anyway, he is doing his share for the Nation's economy. He's put the beer industry back on its feet--almost alone. A lot of people criticize Billy, but his standing in the public opinion polls is substantially above my own. As a matter of fact, lately--you couldn't tell it by tonight--but the polls have been down a little. But I remind myself that even in the worst of polls, I've only dropped 3 percent since election night. So, I'm pretty good there. And in the more responsible and reliable polls, we're still up pretty high, as you know, and I have enjoyed it.