The Presidential Speech I'd Love To Hear

essay

My Fellow Americans,

Tonight I bring to you a message of inspiration, of hope, of destiny. While it is true that we have been hit hard economically; that we are guilty of being led by our greed, guilty of allowing snake oil salesmen in expensive suits to usurp our hard-earned life savings, there is a surging silver lining hidden within the gloom.

We stand today as a nation at a crossroads. In our short life as a country, we have profited and lost, we have grown and shrunk. We were a fledgeling nation that struggled and grew into a superpower, a superpower which now fights a growing battle against corruption and greed, one which teeters at the point of inevitable backsliding.

But this is a mess of our own doing, one which has been 25 years in the making, and one which I am gratified to say we can solve in a series of nationwide, all-encompassing changes. It will be an historic event, one which will bring about the next great period of man's advancement-- the Age of Enlightenment.

In the whole of human history, we have always progressed with care and caution, because of one overriding truth of human interaction-- that whatever good we might accomplish, we still could not trust, with absolute certainty, our neighbor's intent. It was because of that doubt that weapons were created, and locks, and jails, and guns, and at the far extreme, ethnic cleansing and genocide.

We have watched in concern as our neighbors have been flooded from their homes. In the flick of a channel, new information from across the globe warns of a coming draught. One community suffers pestilence in the form of vermin; another has an excess of feline population. The solution has been waiting for us to find it for as long as we have been living on this blue-green ball of life, waiting for us to catch up with nature. Nature's connectivity is indisputable-- how long have we marveled at Earth's ability to stay in balance? We consume air and exhale carbon dioxide; plants take in carbon dioxide and emit oxygen-- it is perfect harmony.

Over time, humanity gained sentience, and in the geological equivalent of a sharp breath we begin to throw off Earth's balance with questionable choices. We develop the ability to reason and then use that talent to find inappropriate answers to our greatest questions. We invent a code of ethics without considering its effect on the Earth our host, and the host is suffering as a result.

Well, I believe it's time to become model house guests. We're going to mop the floors and take out the trash, shine up the windows and put a sparkle on the flatware. And we're not just doing it to be nice, or to be mature. No, this plan works in our favor as well, for when we put our home in humming-smooth operation it does its best for us as well.

You may be thinking that America is very nearly in hock, that we can't even pay for our own basic needs right now. You ask yourself how we are going to find the funding to also pay for global cleanup? You wonder if you will have to work extra jobs, or if your children will be required to work. You fear the answer to what sacrifices you will have to make.

I am going to ask you to do almost the opposite of what presidents in the recent past have asked of you. You remember one leader asking us to go out and keep shopping in an effort to stimulate the economy. I will ask you to put away your cash and credit cards for all but the most necessary of purchases, for right now.

Years ago we were asked to work hard so we could triumph over an oppressor nation. I want you to work SMART, not hard. When this plan is fully implemented each of you should only be working a small fraction of the time you spend today.

To help drive our economy we pushed style, so that the items you purchased this year would be seen as out of date next year; and one-upsmanship, so that the products you purchase had to be of superior price and quality to the products your acquaintances have. For this plan to succeed, fashion and superiority will take a break in favor of practicality. I won't be asking you to don identical uniforms, just to allow the clothes you currently own live a full life.

We are implementing a nationwide chain of free shoppes, where you bring in any used item to trade for any other similar used item. If your coffeepot is on the fritz, trade it for a nicer working model. If you need a larger lawnmower, bring in your current lawnmower. TV's, stereos beds, refrigerators, can crushers... whatever you have, you can trade it for better. Use these shoppes to keep the items you currently have in working order.

We will be creating a much more comprehensive recycling network. There will be no more garbage dumps. Every item will find another life when its manufactured life ends. Your duty as citizens will be to sort every item into its correct bin, and in the beginning there will be a lot of bins. Soon, a public works project will create a recycling pipeway to take the place of today's sanitation system. On the manufacturing side, we're redesigning the concept of packaging to eliminate waste. We're also much more carefully managing plastic, which is choking our oceans, and the reclaimed junk will find use in more permanent projects.

We have some new programs designed to cut our connection to the fossil fuels that are poisoning America with pollution. We have a number of viable alternatives which will need immediate, nationwide infrastructure, and to make that happen we're offering government sponsored construction jobs to tens of thousands of qualified individuals across the USA. When this project is finished there will be so much energy being produced we will have to sell off half of it to other nations.

Our roadways are suffocating because we haven't kept pace with our population growth. Now we address that problem by building peoplemovers to take millions of cars off the roads; we're implementing programs alongside the nation's corporations, which are shifting millions more employees to work at home, eliminating those daily commutes; and we are even investigating a speculative even-exchange program with large companies to swap long distance workers of the same job and pay scale with local ones, to the benefit of the employees and their families, the employers, the environment, and the nation's highways.

The time has come to STOP being fruitful and multiplying. There is just one civil way to reduce our population to controllable levels, and that is through natural attrition. Now we must raise but a single child per family, for several generations. We will be able to devote our full attention and resources to him or her and allow them to reach their full potential as unique and productive citizens.

We will take a cue from our European neighbors and allow recreational drugs to finally work for us instead of the other way around. Legalizing marijuana outright and prescribing all other drugs would bring in a sizable revenue; would eliminate the current budget allocated to fight the war on drugs; would encourage competition among growers and manufacturers which would drop prices, squeezing violent foreign regimes out of the running and decreasing the need to steal for drug money; and would end the influx of drug-related criminals in America's prisons. Drugs are a symptom of a socioeconomic system which is unfair to the masses; fixing the system will greatly reduce drug use... it's that simple.

We expand the focus of the Department of Corrections to include actual correction, to allow rehabilitation and re-emergence into society and decrease the rate of recidivism. While I agree that there are some criminals who are beyond rehabilitation, the simple fact is that most people would not commit crimes if there were no need to do so. Modifying our social system to reflect human needs, ALL human needs, would go a very long way to eliminate many of today's criminal behaviors. Many of today's inmates are eligible to be part of the government's infrastructure project, and after completing that service, will be extended an offer to become taxpaying citizens again.

We have allowed too many policies to be adopted which benefit the rich and the corporations, to the detriment of the vast majority of Americans, and this ends now. The entire content of our law books will be under review to determine the least valuable laws, which will be purged from the records, not simply ignored. When we are done, corporations' first duty will be not to their shareholders, but to the nation it serves. The insurance companies will cease to serve its bottom line and instead will become nonprofit organizations. The chief job of attorneys will be to simplify, not complicate.

And it's high time the American people got back to school-- we can hardly be a nation of leaders if we're a nation of ignorant dummies. I watch television and I know what passes for entertainment out there, and quite frankly it shames me. I thought we were better than that. I hear the comments coming from our populace and I have to shake my head in embarrassment, because they lack vision or introspection or even common sense. Instead, the general knowledge emanating from the bulk of our people is mindless parroting of our idiot opinionmakers, or religious blather with no basis in reality, or nationalistic, chest-thumping hot air. I hear so few good ideas coming from 'out there' that I can see why the world's opinion of us has dropped so drastically, but all that is about to change. Let's start with some oft-repeated pap. We've all hear people say that America is a Christian nation. While it may have a lot of Christian people, American is a Democratic nation, not a Christian one.

We've also heard people say that America is a nation of laws. While we have laws we are expected to follow, it is not our main purpose as Americans, to follow laws. I like to think we have a grander purpose than mindless obedience.

What America is, is the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is time we lived up to those words.

Many people lament the loss of American jobs to illegal immigrants. This is a complex problem and at its root lies corrupt foreign governments. For example, the Mexican nation is a productive one but most of the profits are only seen by a powerful few, leaving the rest of the country in economic peril. Most illegal immigrants are here because in their home country, they and their families would starve. But when corruption ends, the citizens can rise up out of choking poverty, and migration back to Mexico will be legion.

The government will be making a drastic change in the way we handle the affairs of individuals in this country. What we're changing is, we're backing away graciously. It is not the government's duty to legislate love, or decide what a person can do with his or her own body. Insofar as abortion is considered by some to be murder, it is the government's perspective that because it is attached to the body, it is no more murder than the removal of an organ. Nonetheless, it is far preferable to not endure that sorrow at all, and to that end long term contraception will be offered for anyone who does not foresee children in the near future. This is part of a larger effort to reduce the population of the Earth to Pre World War I levels. Doing so will positively affect the environment, ease the strain on the food chain, reduce the number of factory raised animals, decrease pollution and allow us to upgrade our cities.

Religion is in the hearts of those people who believe. It is best if it stays there because religion has no place in politics. Because of that, politicians who currently have obvious religious ties will be asked to break those bonds or resign, and those who make comments of a religious nature can expect to pay heavy fines and suffer loss of status. Religious entities that make their political views publicly known will have their tax-exempt status revoked. Persons displaying religious behaviors which run counter to American law will not be tolerated; such behaviors will threaten their church's tax status or even its very survival. Religion needs to remain in the church, in the home and in the heart of each American.

However, never before in the span of human existence has there been such a sea of ability, a literal web of connectivity coupling every human with every other human, and it is this network that makes our next transition possible. What I am talking about is, of course, the Internet. Used to its full potential, the World Wide Web is an enormous organizational chart, with every need and every product matched, globally. This will be the advent of just-in-time manufacturing for the consumer, where resources are expended as needed, without the need for huge storehouses of unopened products. Organization is the key to success, and the computer is the key to organization.

We're not yet done. These are the tough steps, the path between where we are and where we'd like to be. Some of the more mind-boggling changes we have planned for the near and the not-so-distant future:

You will all stop paying rent. You'll stop paying the mortgage. You'll stop collecting rent and mortgage. You will turn off your spreadsheet programs that track where every dollar goes. In the near future we will stop counting every human by the dollar value they produce and instead hold every human life valuable, deserving of food, shelter, medical care, and training. Your needs will be met without issue.

Infrastructure and schools will be in top shape, public transportation will be easy, fast and free. Entertainment will be legion. Activities will replace lethargy; excitement will replace apathy. There will be no limits to imagination-- if an idea has merit, it will be pursued. Welcome to the Age of Enlightenment... where you finally count for something.

Do not judge our former leaders too harshly--they were trying to do right by our nation, based on the information they had at the time. Information we know now to be wrong.

As a people we must be constantly vigilant in searching for the one true way to operate as a complete entity, and the plans I have outlined tonight may be just what we have been seeking. Rest easy, America. Eden is just around the corner.

Thank You, and Good Night.

Copyright 2009 Bruce Ian Friedman