State of the Union Address

If I were the president, this would be my speech this year.  

Members of Congress, as I report this evening on the state of this Union, I consider its state, not only in light of recent actions by our governmental leaders, but of actions from its very beginning until now, for we still today experience the consequences of many early actions as well as more recent ones.

We began as a nation of hypocrites, proclaiming all to be created equal, while enslaving some, thereby denying them the pursuit of the happiness we asserted as an inalienable right into which all people are born. 

We lived and governed under this masquerade for eighty-nine years, until our sixteenth president had the moral courage to lead us into the abolition of the wicked institution that had treated some as beneath, and others as above our founding principles. 

Even after slavery was abolished, bigots found a way to oppress former slaves and their descendants while our government turned a blind eye. Oh how different Reconstruction may have gone had our beloved Lincoln not been assassinated. 

For the next one-hundred years, we allowed Jim Crow in the South and oppression by less conspicuous names in other regions to carry forward the same agenda slavery had championed in the first decades of our existence as a nation.

Even today – when, surely, many believe it to be resolved – racial prejudice and injustice are marching on. We must discern the connection between many of our current woes and the wrongs we’ve committed toward our brothers and sisters in the past; the economic, the international and the social are all arenas permeated by the toxic results of the poisonous treatment we’ve extended our mistreated citizen groups. But, in the words of Dr. King, as he quoted from the book of Amos, let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is time to rid ourselves of this pestilence! We must shed this curse still upon us as we make the installment payments in a multitude of ways for the sin of slavery that we committed as a nation.

How do we absolve our nation of such guilt?

I plan to lead us down the path of Micah 6:8. Live justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God.

How , you ask, can justice and mercy coexist? Must we not choose one or the other?

Please understand this: as we walk humbly through this with God, justice will be for the oppressed, and mercy will apply to the oppressors.

So we will make restitution to the descendants of former slaves without penalizing the descendants of those who enslaved them. 

I’ve heard it said, as many of you have, “Why should I have to pay for something my ancestors did? I didn’t do it, nor would I have if I’d lived at that time.”

Likely, we’ve also heard, “How is it fair that I be disadvantaged as a result of my ancestors being enslaved?”

We will not attempt the remedy that some have attempted and still attempt today. Giving out money in the name of welfare is counterproductive if it is the sole strategy. Welfare is a piece of the solution; it must be. But it cannot be the entire solution. It creates a demographic which depends too greatly upon the government and is kept by that government in a cycle of poverty. This was not the intention of those wise and courageous leaders of the 1950s and 60s. Oh how different civil rights might be today had our beloved MLK not been assassinated.

In the days to come my executive team will implement the plan in all its minute details, all of which flow from these three broad principles:

1. Any descendant of U.S. slaves will qualify for an opportunity to purchase property and access capital for the purpose of building and/or growing a business.
2. Any person or entity affording a descendant of slaves an opportunity to build and/or grow a business will be compensated for the cost incurred in affording that opportunity to that descendant. 
3. This program will be funded by a grant established with and maintained by an association of churches and nonprofits who are sympathetic to this cause.

I invite the prayers and support of all the American citizens for this program. May God bless you and may God bless the United States of America!