Speech for Constitution Day/Frederick Douglass

[GunnyFreedom]

My process is that I like to write the speech out totally, THEN outline it, and THEN speak impromptu from the outline....

This is a work in progress...

====================

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

My name is Glen Bradley, and while I am a candidate for North Carolina State House, I would like to focus instead tonight on a personal hero of mine, Frederick Douglass, and his personal philosophy of strict Constitutionalism which we are celebrating today, Constitution Day.

On September 17th, 1787, the US Constitution was complete, and a nation was born. The Constitution was not perfect -- a compromise against the fundamental values of most of our nation's founders retained the evil of slavery, which would eventually be ended in America's bloodiest war before or since.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, taught himself to read and write, and became one of the most brilliant men in American history. Frederick Douglass said of that time, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." We could easily say the same thing today, of ourselves, and regarding the amount of control that our governments have over our lives.

We seek permission from the government to drive, to get married, to open a business, and to

The government declares that they own what we make and allow us to keep a portion of it through the income tax.

The government owns all of our property and allows us to rent it from them through property tax.

Under current law, a US citizen can be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without a trial, sent to foreign countries where torture is legal, and be executed without ever filing a charge -- just because the President says so! Whether or not we trust President Obama with this power, should we trust the next President with this power? I say NO PERSON in America should have that power, and the US Constitution doesn't allow it!

Frederick Douglass was right. He said, and believed until the day he died, that "the U.S. Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for Black American civil and human rights."

The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our governments obey it!

Our nation and our State is in trouble, deep trouble that no one President, Congressman, or Legislator can fix by himself, but there is a way to save our Nation and our State, and we need your help to do it.

If we as a society did two simple things - 1) every man, woman and child in America needs to learn the Constitution and to understand it, and we need to teach our children the same. and 2) we need to make our highest civic duty in the voting booth to FIRE any elected official who disrespects it in any way. If we did that, just those two simple things, then America would be saved in a generation, and would stay safe for generations to come.

We have to stop voting for Republicans, and we have to stop voting for Democrats, and we have to START voting the Constitution. We have to read the Constitution and understand it, and then we need to compare our Representatives voting records side by side with what the Constitution allows them to do. If they cross they line, then you and I need to put them on the unemployment line.

Just because we cannot see the bars of our cages does not mean that we are free. As Mr. Douglass said, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." I wanted to open a business and start fixing peoples computers, networks, and cash registers, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we are not free, and that we cannot be free, until we have a government that strictly abides by the Constitution. This is where you ladies and gentlemen can help save the nation, by leading the way.

Slavery was a deep vicious evil that should never have happened, but it did. Because of your unique position of being only three generations removed fromt he despicable evil of slavery, the Black community knows what it's like to climb up from the chains of slavery into the light of freedom, while the rest of America has become secretly enslaved and they don't even know it.

You, more than anybody else in America, can lead the way back to freedom and prosperity for all of us, and be hailed as the heroes who led our way to salvation.

It starts by voting the Constitution, every time and without exception. Reach out to your neighbors, your children, your parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. Talk about Frederick Douglass -- one of the most brilliant men to every walk upon this continent and talk about what he believed.

Talk about how Frederick Douglass, a freedman, maintained until the day he died that the best guarantee of civil and human rights for all Americans was to force the government to strictly and equally obey the Constitution, and talk about how far we've come from that path that Mr. Douglass has charted for us.

[GunnyFreedom]

Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

My name is Glen Bradley, and while I am a candidate for North Carolina State House, I would like to focus instead tonight on a personal hero of mine, Frederick Douglass, and his personal philosophy of strict Constitutionalism which we are celebrating today, Constitution Day.

On September 17th, 1787, the US Constitution was complete, and a nation was born. The Constitution was not perfect -- a compromise against the fundamental values of most of our nation's founders retained the evil of slavery, which would eventually be ended during America's bloodiest war ever.

Frederick Douglass was one of the most important abolitionists in our history, and it was Frederick Douglass who convinced Lincoln to make slavery an issue in the Civil War which he was already fighting. If not for Frederick Douglass convincing Abraham Lincoln to make the abolition of slavery an issue during the Civil War, it may have been another 30 or 40 years before the evil, despicable practice was ended.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, he taught himself to read and write, and became one of the most brilliant men in American history. Frederick Douglass said of that time, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." We could easily say the same thing today, of ourselves, and regarding the amount of control that our governments have over our lives.

You see, we have to seek permission from the government to drive, to get married, to open a business, and to become a healer, a nurse, or a doctor.

We have to seek permission from a government licensed doctor in order to treat our own illnesses or injuries, or the government will come and throw us in jail. Who owns our bodies anyway? If we have to ask for someone's permission just to take medicine, then I submit to you that we do not own our own bodies, and that ladies and gentlemen, is the very definition of slavery.

The government declares that they own everything we make and then allows us to keep a portion of our wages through the income tax. The government owns all of our property and allows us to rent it from them through property tax -- if we do not pay it we get evicted like any other rentor. The government calls us up for jury duty, pays us pennies on the hour, and if we don't show up then we get locked in jail.

Under current law, a US citizen can be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without a trial, sent to foreign countries where torture is legal, and be executed without ever filing a charge -- just because the President says so. Under current law, American citizens can be targeted for assassination anywhere in the world at home or abroad -- just because the President says so! Whether or not we trust President Obama with this power, do you think we should trust the next President with this power? I say NO PERSON in America should have that power, and besides, the Constitution doesn't allow it!

Frederick Douglass was right. He said, and he believed until the day he died, that "the U.S. Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for Black American civil and human rights."

The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our governments obey it!

Our nation and our State is in trouble, deep trouble that no one President, Congressman, or Legislator can fix by himself, but there is a way to save our Nation and our State, and we need your help to do it.

If we as a society did two simple things - 1) every man, woman and child in America needs to learn the Constitution and to understand it, and teach our children the same. and 2) we need to make our highest civic duty in the voting booth to FIRE any elected official who disrespects it - in any way. If we did that, just those two simple things, then America would be saved within a generation, and we would stay safe for generations to come.

We have to stop voting for Republicans, and we have to stop voting for Democrats, and we have to START voting the Constitution. We have to read the Constitution and understand it, and then we need to compare our Representatives voting records side by side with what the Constitution allows them to do. If they cross that line, then you and I need to put them on the unemployment line.

We talk about America being the land of the free, and if you talk about how America is not free, then people look at you like you've lost your mind. Let's talk about the land of the free for a minute. In America, we lock more people in prison than any other country on the face of the planet. That's right, The Land Of the Free, the United States of America has the highest per-capita incarceration rate ON THE PLANET, with more than 1 out of every 100 adults in prison, and more than 1 of every 31 adults owned by the Department of Corrections through probation and parole.

What's worse is that law enforcement disproportionately affects minorities. Black Americans make up something like 18% of drug users, but Black Americans make up closer to 50% of drug convictions. Frederick Douglass said "strictly and equally enforced" -- our nation has abandoned the Constitution, and so we have lost our way. If we want equal justice, then we have to get back to the Constitution, and you are the very people who can lead us back to it.

Just because we cannot see the bars of our cages does not mean that we are free. As Mr. Douglass said, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." I wanted to open a business and start fixing peoples computers, networks, and cash registers, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not. I wanted to ... but without permission from the government I could not. I wanted to marry the love of my life, a beautiful and smart woman who no man could resist, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not.

I wanted to live my life without the government telling me what I could and could not do, but then I woke up in an America where I could not.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we are not free, and that we cannot be free, until we have a government that strictly abides by the Constitution. This is where you ladies and gentlemen can help save the nation, by leading the way.

Slavery was a deep vicious evil that should never have happened, but it did. Because of your unique position of being only three generations removed fromt he despicable evil of slavery, the Black community knows what it's like to climb up from the chains of slavery into the light of freedom, while the rest of America has become secretly enslaved and they don't even know it.

You, more than anybody else in America, can help lead the way back to freedom and prosperity for all of us, and be hailed as the heroes who led our way to salvation.

It starts by voting the Constitution, every time and without exception. Reach out to your neighbors, your children, your parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. Talk about Frederick Douglass -- one of the most brilliant men to every walk upon this continent and talk about what he believed.

Talk about how Frederick Douglass, a freedman, maintained until the day he died that the best guarantee of civil and human rights for all Americans was to force the government to strictly and equally obey the Constitution, and talk about how far we've come from that path that Mr. Douglass has charted for us.

It's up to us, to you and me, and all of our citizens to force our elected officials to obey the Constitution, and right now they aren't doing it because we aren't doing it. Today, our Representatives from both parties get into office, forget about the people who sent them there, ignore the Constitution, do anything they want and leave us to clean up the mess.

Now, it's time to clean up their mess for good. Saving our Nation and our State starts with you. WE are the change that we seek, and only WE are the ones who can stand up and make our governments obey the Constitution. If you have not already gotten one, we have a table right there with enough pocket constitutions for everyone to get one, free of charge.

I hope you will enjoy our speakers, Kevin Daniels, President of the North Carolina Frederick Douglass Foundation, and our headliner Lenny McAllister, celebrated author, host, and hip-hop Republican. Please stick around for our panel discussion, and afterwards we will take questions from the audience.

Again, my name is Glen Bradley, and while I am running for North Carolina State House on the Republican ticket in this district, I am not going to stand here and talk about myself, because this day - Constitution Day - needs to be about Frederick Douglass, the US Constitution, and how we can save our nation for generations to come. Thank you, and God bless you all!

[GunnyFreedom]

too much? not enough? wrong direction?

[GunnyFreedom]

Added section on corporatism:


Good evening ladies and gentlemen,

My name is Glen Bradley, and while I am a candidate for North Carolina State House, I would like to focus instead tonight on a personal hero of mine, Frederick Douglass, and his personal philosophy of strict Constitutionalism which we are celebrating today, Constitution Day.

On September 17th, 1787, the US Constitution was complete, and a nation was born. The Constitution was not perfect -- a compromise against the fundamental values of most of our nation's founders retained the evil of slavery, which would eventually be ended during America's bloodiest war ever.

Frederick Douglass was one of the most important abolitionists in our history, and it was Frederick Douglass who convinced Lincoln to make slavery an issue in the Civil War which he was already fighting. If not for Frederick Douglass convincing Abraham Lincoln to make the abolition of slavery an issue during the Civil War, it may have been another 30 or 40 years before the evil, despicable practice was ended.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery, he taught himself to read and write, and became one of the most brilliant men in American history. Frederick Douglass said of that time, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." We could easily say the same thing today, of ourselves, and regarding the amount of control that our governments have over our lives.

You see, we have to seek permission from the government to drive, to get married, to open a business, and to become a healer, a nurse, or a doctor.

We have to seek permission from a government licensed doctor in order to treat our own illnesses or injuries, or the government will come and throw us in jail. Who owns our bodies anyway? If we have to ask for someone's permission just to take medicine, then I submit to you that we do not own our own bodies, and that ladies and gentlemen, is the very definition of slavery.

The government declares that they own everything we make and then allows us to keep a portion of our wages through the income tax. The government owns all of our property and allows us to rent it from them through property tax -- if we do not pay it we get evicted like any other rentor. The government calls us up for jury duty, pays us pennies on the hour, and if we don't show up then we get locked in jail.

Under current law, a US citizen can be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without a trial, sent to foreign countries where torture is legal, and be executed without ever filing a charge -- just because the President says so. Under current law, American citizens can be targeted for assassination anywhere in the world at home or abroad -- just because the President says so! Whether or not we trust President Obama with this power, do you think we should trust the next President with this power? I say NO PERSON in America should have that power, and besides, the Constitution doesn't allow it!

Frederick Douglass was right. He said, and he believed until the day he died, that "the U.S. Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for Black American civil and human rights."

The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our governments obey it!

Our nation and our State is in trouble, deep trouble that no one President, Congressman, or Legislator can fix by himself, but there is a way to save our Nation and our State, and we need your help to do it.

If we as a society did two simple things - 1) every man, woman and child in America needs to learn the Constitution and to understand it, and teach our children the same. and 2) we need to make our highest civic duty in the voting booth to FIRE any elected official who disrespects it - in any way. If we did that, just those two simple things, then America would be saved within a generation, and we would stay safe for generations to come.

We have to stop voting for Republicans, and we have to stop voting for Democrats, and we have to START voting the Constitution. We have to read the Constitution and understand it, and then we need to compare our Representatives voting records side by side with what the Constitution allows them to do. If they cross that line, then you and I need to put them on the unemployment line.

We talk about America being the land of the free, and if you talk about how America is not free, then people look at you like you've lost your mind. Let's talk about the land of the free for a minute. In America, we lock more people in prison than any other country on the face of the planet. That's right, The Land Of the Free, the United States of America has the highest per-capita incarceration rate ON THE PLANET, with more than 1 out of every 100 adults in prison, and more than 1 of every 31 adults owned by the Department of Corrections through probation and parole.

What's worse is that law enforcement disproportionately affects minorities. Black Americans make up something like 18% of drug users, but Black Americans make up closer to 50% of drug convictions. Frederick Douglass said "strictly and equally enforced" -- our nation has abandoned the Constitution, and so we have lost our way. If we want equal justice, then we have to get back to the Constitution, and you are the very people who can lead us back to it.

Just because we cannot see the bars of our cages does not mean that we are free. As Mr. Douglass said, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." I wanted to open a business and start fixing peoples computers, networks, and cash registers, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not. I wanted to ... but without permission from the government I could not. I wanted to marry the love of my life, a beautiful and smart woman who no man could resist, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not.

Corporate lobbyists and special interests now rule over our government by throwing millions of dollars around towards any elected official that will vote their way once in office. The Cap and Trade Carbon Tax bill was written by BP oil, the Health Care Reform Bill was written by health insurance billionaires, and the Financial Reform Act was written by the bankers and by Wall Street. Congress doesn't even write their laws any more, the lobbyists and big corporations do, and because they have millions of dollars to throw around, the incumbent representatives which all of us hate, enjoy a 95% reelection rate!

I wanted to live my life without the government telling me what I could and could not do, but then I woke up in an America where I could not. We do not now have, nor can we ever have the kind of money to compete with big business, but we CAN take back control of our government. We can make them obey the Constitution by getting rid of anybody who doesn't, REGARDLESS of their party.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we are not free, and that we cannot be free, until we have a government that strictly abides by the Constitution. This is where you ladies and gentlemen can help save the nation, by leading the way.

Slavery was a deep vicious evil that should never have happened, but it did. Because of your unique position of being only three generations removed from the despicable evil of slavery, the Black community knows what it's like to climb up from the chains of slavery into the light of freedom, while the rest of America has become secretly enslaved and they don't even know it.

You, more than anybody else in America, can help lead the way back to freedom and prosperity for all of us, and be hailed as the heroes who led our way to salvation.

It starts by voting the Constitution, every time and without exception. Reach out to your neighbors, your children, your parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. Talk about Frederick Douglass -- one of the most brilliant men to every walk upon this continent and talk about what he believed.

Talk about how Frederick Douglass, a freedman, maintained until the day he died that the best guarantee of civil and human rights for all Americans was to force the government to strictly and equally obey the Constitution, and talk about how far we've come from that path that Mr. Douglass has charted for us.

It's up to us, to you and me, and all of our citizens to force our elected officials to obey the Constitution, and right now they aren't doing it because we aren't doing it. Today, our Representatives from both parties get into office, forget about the people who sent them there, ignore the Constitution, do anything they want and leave us to clean up the mess.

Now, it's time to clean up their mess for good. Saving our Nation and our State starts with you. WE are the change that we seek, and only WE are the ones who can stand up and make our governments obey the Constitution. If you have not already gotten one, we have a table right there with enough pocket constitutions for everyone to get one, free of charge.

I hope you will enjoy our speakers, Kevin Daniels, President of the North Carolina Frederick Douglass Foundation, and our headliner Lenny McAllister, celebrated author, host, and hip-hop Republican. Please stick around for our panel discussion, and afterwards we will take questions from the audience.

Again, my name is Glen Bradley, and while I am running for North Carolina State House on the Republican ticket in this district, I am not going to stand here and talk about myself, because this day - Constitution Day - needs to be about Frederick Douglass, the US Constitution, and how we can save our nation for generations to come. Thank you, and God bless you all!

[GunnyFreedom]

OK then, I'll take it like it is and go crash out for a few so I'm not a zombie tomorrow. I'm a lot afraid of giving this speech, as I don't want to offend anybody with it, but nobody seems to have a problem with it so cool beans.

[Imperial]

see next post

[Imperial]

Here is my version of your speech up to "The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our governments obey it!" I have classes in the afternoon and homework that must get done in the morning, so I don't have the time to do anymore. However, I would suggest you time the speech to 1) figure out where it is best to emphasize points and keep the momentum right and 2) make sure it is not too long for your event.

Most of the edits were simply to improve the flow and to keep the theme of the speech focused. You need to make sure you do not go off on a tangent, and make sure each paragraph has a point. I removed the reference to jury duty b/c it didn't neatly fit into categories. You can go into complex ideas, but you need to keep the chains of logic simple. Also, I would not go into the corporatism references at all. It doesnt fit well enough into the narrative you have created [which is tell the story of a slave fighting for freedom, tell the story of us as slaves, explain how the original gave the answer to our problem in the constitution].


My name is Glen Bradley, and I am a candidate for the North Carolina State House. However, tonight is not about me. Instead, I would like to focus on my personal hero, Frederick Douglass, and his philosophy of strict Constitutionalism as we celebrate Constitution Day together.

Frederick Douglass was one of the most important abolitionists in our history. It was Frederick Douglass who convinced Lincoln to make slavery an issue during the Civil War. If Douglass had failed to convince the president to fight for the freedom of enslaved Americans, it may have been another 30 or 40 years before the evil, despicable practice was ended.

Frederick Douglass himself was a man born into slavery. He said of that time, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." Today, we are lucky to be born free in America. Nevertheless, like Douglass we too have a surprising lack of control over our own lives.

It seems that every little thing we do in life seems to require government permission. You need a license to drive, a license to get married, a license to open a business, or a license to practice medicine. The government seems to have a license for everything!

And what if we don't want to ask for permission to live our lives? Use a doctor without a license to treat your own illnesses or injuries, and the government can throw you in jail. But does the government own you, or are you free? If we have to seek permission from a government licensed doctor in order to treat our own illnesses or injuries, or the government will come and throw us in jail. Who owns our bodies anyway? If we must ask for someone's permission just to take medicine, then I submit to you that we do not own our own ourselves! And if you do not own yourself, ladies and gentlemen, you are living the very definition of slavery.

This slavery at the hands of our government extends into your daily life. Take your finances. Even though you work to make a paycheck every day, the government has decided that it has a right to keep some of your money for itself through the income tax. And if you own a house or land? For all of our lip-service to property rights, the government still takes a share of that through property taxes! And if you want to buy food or clothing, basic staples of life? Well, the government still takes a piece of that through the sales tax!

The federal government will not respect your rights to life and liberty. Under current law, a US citizen can be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without a trial, sent to foreign countries where torture is legal, and be executed without ever filing a charge -- just because the President says so. Under current law, American citizens can be targeted for assassination anywhere in the world at home or abroad -- just because the President says so! If we hope to survive as free men and women, we cannot simply surrender and say that the President is protecting us. Whether or not we trust President Obama with this power, do you think we should trust the next President with this power? I say NO PERSON in America should have that power.

But Frederick Douglass understood something important, something that we have forgotten in these dark times. He said, and he believed it until the day he died, that "the U.S. Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for Black American civil and human rights."

The licenses, the taxes, the destruction of our civil liberties, none of this is what the Founders had in mind when they crafted the Constitution. In fact, none of this was ever allowed by the Constitution!

The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our government obey it!

[Imperial]

Here is my version of your speech up to "The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our governments obey it!" I have classes in the afternoon and homework that must get done in the morning, so I don't have the time to do anymore. Ok, I finished editing it, so please inform my professors of this :D However, I would suggest you time the speech to 1) figure out where it is best to emphasize points and keep the momentum right and 2) make sure it is not too long for your event.

Most of the edits were simply to improve the flow and to keep the theme of the speech focused. You need to make sure you do not go off on a tangent, and make sure each paragraph has a point. I removed the reference to jury duty b/c it didn't neatly fit into categories. You can go into complex ideas, but you need to keep the chains of logic simple. Also, I would not go into the corporatism references at all. It doesnt fit well enough into the narrative you have created [which is tell the story of a slave fighting for freedom, tell the story of us as slaves, explain how the original gave the answer to our problem in the constitution].

The ending was really strong I thought, so I did not edit the last few paragraphs at all.


My name is Glen Bradley, and I am a candidate for the North Carolina State House. However, tonight is not about me. Instead, I would like to focus on my personal hero, Frederick Douglass, and his philosophy of strict Constitutionalism as we celebrate Constitution Day together.

Frederick Douglass was one of the most important abolitionists in our history. It was Frederick Douglass who convinced Lincoln to make slavery an issue during the Civil War. If Douglass had failed to convince the president to fight for the freedom of enslaved Americans, it may have been another 30 or 40 years before the evil, despicable practice was ended.

Frederick Douglass himself was a man born into slavery. He said of that time, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." Today, we are lucky to be born free in America. Nevertheless, like Douglass we too have a surprising lack of control over our own lives.

It seems that every little thing we do in life seems to require government permission. You need a license to drive, a license to get married, a license to open a business, or a license to practice medicine. The government seems to have a license for everything!

And what if we don't want to ask for permission to live our lives? Use a doctor without a license to treat your own illnesses or injuries, and the government can throw you in jail. But does the government own you, or are you free? If we have to seek permission from a government licensed doctor in order to treat our own illnesses or injuries, or the government will come and throw us in jail. Who owns our bodies anyway? If we must ask for someone's permission just to take medicine, then I submit to you that we do not own our own ourselves! And if you do not own yourself, ladies and gentlemen, you are living the very definition of slavery.

This slavery at the hands of our government extends into your daily life. Take your finances. Even though you work to make a paycheck every day, the government has decided that it has a right to keep some of your money for itself through the income tax. And if you own a house or land? For all of our lip-service to property rights, the government still takes a share of that through property taxes! And if you want to buy food or clothing, basic staples of life? Well, the government still takes a piece of that through the sales tax!

The federal government will not respect your rights to life and liberty. Under current law, a US citizen can be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without a trial, sent to foreign countries where torture is legal, and be executed without ever filing a charge -- just because the President says so. Under current law, American citizens can be targeted for assassination anywhere in the world at home or abroad -- just because the President says so! If we hope to survive as free men and women, we cannot simply surrender and say that the President is protecting us. Whether or not we trust President Obama with this power, do you think we should trust the next President with this power? I say NO PERSON in America should have that power.

But Frederick Douglass understood something important, something that we have forgotten in these dark times. He said, and he believed it until the day he died, that "the U.S. Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for Black American civil and human rights."

The licenses, the taxes, the destruction of our civil liberties, none of this is what the Founders had in mind when they crafted the Constitution. In fact, none of this was ever allowed by the Constitution!

The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our government obey it! Our nation and our State is in trouble, deep trouble that no one President, Congressman, or Legislator can fix alone. Nevertheless, there is a way out of this huge mess we find ourselves in.

Our society must do two simple things. First, every man, woman and child in America needs to learn the Constitution to understand the freedom and rights to which they are entitled. The Constitution is a document that limits government's ability to intervene in our lives. There was a reason that the powers of the government are ennumerated in the Constitution. There was a reason that the Bill of Rights ensures you can live without government interference.

But some elected officials hope you do not remember this. That is why we need a second solution, to make our highest civic duty in the voting booth to FIRE any elected official who disrespects it - in any way. Whenever Congress votes to ignore the powers granted to it in the Constitution, fire them! If a legislator writes a law that usurps your freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or your liberty, fire them! By firing those who violate our Constitution, we can ensure that every American remains free from an insidious form of government slavery.

It is not about party. We cannot blindly vote for Republicans or blindly vote for Democrats; indeed, tyranny is not exclusive to either major party. Instead, we have to start voting FOR the Constitution. If we take the time to read and understand the founding document of our nation, we can then ensure that we pick our representatives based on who understands the Constitution and who understands our freedom.

Unfortunately, we haven't elected real supporters of the Constitution to Congress or the State House. These people like to talk about America being the land of the free. Wanna talk about the land of the free? Let's talk about the land of the free for a minute. In America, we lock more people in prison than any other country on the face of the planet. That's right, The Land Of the Free, the United States of America has the highest per-capita incarceration rate ON THE PLANET, with more than 1 out of every 100 adults in prison, and more than 1 of every 31 adults owned by the Department of Corrections through probation and parole.

What's worse is that law enforcement disproportionately affects minorities. Black Americans make up something like 18% of drug users, but Black Americans make up closer to 50% of drug convictions. Frederick Douglass said that laws in our nation must be "strictly and equally enforced" -- but that simply isn't happening now! Our elected office-holders have abandoned our Constitution. More than that, our nation has abandoned the Constitution. We have fallen asleep as we lost our freedoms. If we want true freedom from slavery, then we must wake up and return to the Constitution.

Mr. Douglass said, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." I too discovered the tyranny of our government the hard way. I wanted to open a business and start fixing peoples computers, networks, and cash registers, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not. I wanted to marry the love of my life, a beautiful and smart woman who no man could resist, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not.

I wanted to live my life without the government telling me what I could and could not do, but then I woke up in an America where I could not. We do not have lobbyists or billions of dollars to buy our freedom- but we do have something that the crooks in Washington and Raleigh don't have- the Constitution.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we are not free, and that we cannot be free, until we have a government that strictly abides by the Constitution. This is where you ladies and gentlemen can help save the nation, by leading the way.

Slavery was a deep vicious evil that should never have happened, but it did. Because of your unique position of being only three generations removed from the despicable evil of slavery, the Black community knows what it's like to climb up from the chains of slavery into the light of freedom, while the rest of America has become secretly enslaved and they don't even know it.

You, more than anybody else in America, can help lead the way back to freedom and prosperity for all of us, and be hailed as the heroes who led our way to salvation.

It starts by voting for the Constitution, every time and without exception. Reach out to your neighbors, your children, your parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. Talk about Frederick Douglass -- one of the most brilliant men to every walk upon this continent and talk about what he believed.

Talk about how Frederick Douglass, a freedman, maintained until the day he died that the best guarantee of civil and human rights for all Americans was to force the government to strictly and equally obey the Constitution, and talk about how far we've come from that path that Mr. Douglass has charted for us.

It's up to us, to you and me, and all of our citizens to force our elected officials to obey the Constitution, and right now they aren't doing it because we aren't doing it. Today, our Representatives from both parties get into office, forget about the people who sent them there, ignore the Constitution, do anything they want and leave us to clean up the mess.

Now, it's time to clean up their mess for good. Saving our Nation and our State starts with you. WE are the change that we seek, and only WE are the ones who can stand up and make our governments obey the Constitution. If you have not already gotten one, we have a table right there with enough pocket constitutions for everyone to get one, free of charge.

I hope you will enjoy our speakers, Kevin Daniels, President of the North Carolina Frederick Douglass Foundation, and our headliner Lenny McAllister, celebrated author, host, and hip-hop Republican. Please stick around for our panel discussion, and afterwards we will take questions from the audience.

Again, my name is Glen Bradley, and while I am running for North Carolina State House on the Republican ticket in this district, I am not going to stand here and talk about myself, because this day - Constitution Day - needs to be about Frederick Douglass, the US Constitution, and how we can save our nation for generations to come. Thank you, and God bless you all!

[GunnyFreedom]

Thank you sir for the help! You rock! Without your help I'd have never found the time to edit it with all the nonsense I have to deal with today. This helps a million! :D

[loveshiscountry]

Thank you sir for the help! You rock! Without your help I'd have never found the time to edit it with all the nonsense I have to deal with today. This helps a million! :D
Good luck and go get'em Gunny!!!!

[GunnyFreedom]

Good luck and go get'em Gunny!!!!

Thanks! I am actually quite nervous about whether this speech will turn more people off than on, but Imperial's edits as well as the items I just added about Katrina and the medical records seem to make me feel significantly better about that...


My name is Glen Bradley, and I am a candidate for the North Carolina State House. However, tonight is not about me. Instead, I would like to focus on my personal hero, Frederick Douglass, and his philosophy of strict Constitutionalism as we celebrate Constitution Day together.

Frederick Douglass was one of the most important abolitionists in our history. It was Frederick Douglass who pressured Lincoln to make slavery an issue during the Civil War. If Douglass had failed to convince the president to fight for the freedom of enslaved Americans, it may have been another 30 or 40 years before the evil, despicable practice was ended.

Frederick Douglass himself was a man born into slavery. He said of that time, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." Today, we are lucky to be born free in America. Nevertheless, like Douglass we too have a surprising lack of control over our own lives.

It seems that every little thing we do in life seems to require government permission. You need a license to drive, a license to get married, a license to open a business, or a license to practice medicine. The government seems to have a license for everything!

And what if we don't want to ask for permission to live our lives? Use a doctor without a license to treat your own illnesses or injuries, and the government can throw you in jail. But does the government own you, or are you free? If we have to seek permission from a government licensed doctor in order to treat our own illnesses or injuries, or the government will come and throw us in jail. Who owns our bodies anyway? If we must ask for someone's permission just to take medicine, then I submit to you that we do not own our own selves! And if we do not own ourselves, ladies and gentlemen, we are living in the very definition of slavery.

This slavery at the hands of our government extends into your daily life. Take your finances. Even though you work to make a paycheck every day, the government has decided that it has a right to keep some of your money for itself through the income tax. And if you own a house or land? For all of our lip-service to property rights, the government still takes a share of that through property taxes! And if you want to buy food or clothing, basic staples of life? Well, the government still takes a piece of that through the sales tax!

When Katrina hit New Orleans, the government broke into peoples houses and took their only means of defense, their weapons, and left them to fend for themselves. They herded people against their will into the stadium, and looked the other way while people were robbed, raped and murdered. When the oil spill hit the Gulf Coast, the government came in and told the people of the gulf coast States that they were not allowed to make sand berms to protect their coastline, and they again turned a blind eye when millions of dead fish and sea creatures washed up on the beach.

Today, the North Carolina Sheriff's Association has asked permission to gain access - without a warrant - to see your medical prescriptions and the prescriptions of every North Carolina citizen in order to fish into our medical secrets for evidence of crimes with which to arrest us and lock us into jail.

The federal government will not respect your rights to life and liberty. Under current law, a US citizen can be arrested without a warrant, imprisoned without a trial, sent to foreign countries where torture is legal, and be executed without ever filing a charge -- just because the President says so. Under current law, American citizens can be targeted for assassination anywhere in the world at home or abroad -- just because the President says so! If we hope to survive as free men and women, we cannot simply surrender and say that the President is protecting us. Whether or not we trust President Obama with this power, do you think we should trust the next President with this power? I say NO PERSON in America should have that power.

But Frederick Douglass understood something important, something that we have forgotten in these dark times. He said, and he believed it until the day he died, that "the U.S. Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for Black American civil and human rights."

The licenses, the taxes, the destruction of our civil liberties, none of this is what the Founders had in mind when they crafted the Constitution. In fact, none of this was ever allowed by the Constitution!

The US Constitution, if strictly and equally enforced, remains the best safeguard for the civil and human rights of ALL Americans, and it's time we start making our government obey it! Our nation and our State is in trouble, deep trouble that no one President, Congressman, or Legislator can fix alone. Nevertheless, there is a way out of this huge mess we find ourselves in.

Our society must do two simple things. First, every man, woman and child in America needs to learn the Constitution to understand the freedom and rights to which they are entitled. The Constitution is a document that limits government's ability to intervene in our lives. There was a reason that the powers of the government are enumerated in the Constitution. There was a reason that the Bill of Rights ensures you can live without government interference.

But some elected officials hope you do not remember this. That is why we need a second solution, to make our highest civic duty in the voting booth to FIRE any elected official who disrespects it - in any way. Whenever Congress votes to ignore the powers granted to it in the Constitution, fire them! If a legislator writes a law that usurps your freedom of speech, freedom of religion, or your liberty, fire them! By firing those who violate our Constitution, we can ensure that every American remains free from an insidious form of government slavery.

It is not about party. We cannot blindly vote for Republicans or blindly vote for Democrats; indeed, tyranny is not exclusive to either major party. Instead, we have to start voting FOR the Constitution. If we take the time to read and understand the founding document of our nation, we can then ensure that we pick our representatives based on who understands the Constitution and who understands our freedom.

Unfortunately, we haven't elected real supporters of the Constitution to Congress or the State House. These people like to talk about America being the land of the free. Wanna talk about the land of the free? Let's talk about the land of the free for a minute. In America, we lock more people in prison than any other country on the face of the planet. That's right, The Land Of the Free, the United States of America has the highest per-capita incarceration rate ON THE PLANET, with more than 1 out of every 100 adults in prison, and more than 1 of every 31 adults owned by the Department of Corrections through probation and parole.

What's worse is that law enforcement disproportionately affects minorities. Black Americans make up something like 18% of drug users, but Black Americans make up closer to 50% of drug convictions. Frederick Douglass said that laws in our nation must be "strictly and equally enforced" -- but that simply isn't happening now! Our elected office-holders have abandoned our Constitution. More than that, our nation has abandoned the Constitution. We have fallen asleep as we lost our freedoms. If we want true freedom from slavery, then we must wake up and return to the Constitution.

Mr. Douglass said, "I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I couldn't do the things I wanted." I too discovered the tyranny of our government the hard way. I wanted to open a business and start fixing peoples computers, networks, and cash registers, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not. I wanted to marry the love of my life, a beautiful and smart woman who no man could resist, but without a licence and permission from the government I could not.

I wanted to live my life without the government telling me what I could and could not do, but then I woke up in an America where I could not. We do not have lobbyists or billions of dollars to buy our freedom- but we do have something that the crooks in Washington and Raleigh don't have- the Constitution.

Ladies and gentlemen, I submit to you that we are not free, and that we cannot be free, until we have a government that strictly abides by the Constitution. This is where you ladies and gentlemen can help save the nation, by leading the way.

Slavery was a deep vicious evil that should never have happened, but it did. Because of your unique position of being only three generations removed from the despicable evil of slavery, the Black community knows what it's like to climb up from the chains of slavery into the light of freedom, while the rest of America has become secretly enslaved and they don't even know it.

You, more than anybody else in America, can help lead the way back to freedom and prosperity for all of us, and be hailed as the heroes who led our way to salvation.

It starts by voting for the Constitution, every time and without exception. Reach out to your neighbors, your children, your parents, grandparents, and grandchildren. Talk about Frederick Douglass -- one of the most brilliant men to ever walk upon this continent and talk about what he believed.

Talk about how Frederick Douglass, a freedman, maintained until the day he died that the best guarantee of civil and human rights for all Americans was to force the government to strictly and equally obey the Constitution, and talk about how far we've come from that path that Mr. Douglass has charted for us.

It's up to us, to you and me, and all of our citizens to force our elected officials to obey the Constitution, and right now they aren't doing it because we aren't doing it. Today, our Representatives from both parties get into office, forget about the people who sent them there, ignore the Constitution, do anything they want and leave us to clean up the mess.

Now, it's time to clean up their mess for good. Saving our Nation and our State starts with you. WE are the change that we seek, and only WE are the ones who can stand up and make our governments obey the Constitution. If you have not already gotten one, we have a table right there with enough pocket constitutions for everyone to get one, free of charge.

I hope you will enjoy our speakers, Kevin Daniels, President of the North Carolina Frederick Douglass Foundation, and our headliner Lenny McAllister, celebrated author, host, and hip-hop Republican. Please stick around for our panel discussion, and afterwards we will take questions from the audience.

Again, my name is Glen Bradley, and while I am running for North Carolina State House on the Republican ticket in this district, I am not going to stand here and talk about myself, because this day - Constitution Day - needs to be about Frederick Douglass, the US Constitution, and how we can save our nation for generations to come. Thank you, and God bless you all!

[KCIndy]

Damn, Gunny! Did you get ANY sleep last night?? :eek:

All the drafts of your speech as posted above, including the one edited by Imperial, have merit aside from minor quibbles.

Just speak from the heart. You'll do fine.