AEI awarded its highest honor, the Irving Kristol Award, to Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks. Rabbi Sacks delivered a stirring speech at AEI’s Annual Dinner. Here are a few of the most compelling and insightful parts of his talk:

In America, the social contract is still there, but the social covenant is being lost... And because half of America doesn’t have strong families and communities standing between the individual and the state, people begin to think that all political problems can be solved by the state. But they can’t. And when you think they can, politics begins to indulge in magical thinking. So you get the far right dreaming of a golden past that never was and the far left yearning for a utopian future that never will be. And then comes populism, the belief that a strong leader can solve all our problems for us. And that is the first step down the road to tyranny, whether of the right or of the left.

We need people willing to stand up and say, rich and poor alike, we all have collective responsibility for the common good. And we need a culture of responsibility, not one of victimhood because if you define yourself as a victim, you can never be free.

Read the full speech about American Politics from American Enterprise Institute