The President Speaks: Free speech

Good evening. If I appear somber tonight, it is because I am troubled by recent controversies in the media. The controversies revolve around free speech – what somebody has the right to say and what somebody has the right not to hear.

As Americans, we have always been eager to exercise our right to free speech. We have not always had the maturity to use the right properly or the wisdom to know how easy it is to abuse that right. We also have not had, and do not have, the foresight to realize that if we abuse our right to free speech, the government can, and it should, take that right away.

Today we Americans are not strong. We use profanity freely. We become offended if somebody criticizes our bad language. In love with our so-called right to be a slob, we are enamored of ourselves rather than respectful of someone who demands their right not to listen to our garbage talk.

People who oppose profanity do not oppose my right or yours to have a strong, unusual or scary opinion. Like Thomas Paine said, I have a right to free speech but also a duty not to abuse it. For us that means not swearing in situations where it is not necessary or proper – such as on the radio or riding a bus.

What really do we need to be publicly profane about? Unjust wars. There was plenty of profanity used in protest of the Vietnam War. A few years ago there was a lot of profanity used opposing the Iraq War.

The problem with profanity is that it is easy. It is fun, energizing, rhythmic. People can rally profanely around a person or a cause that they hate, but become as disgusting and intolerant as those they oppose.

This is the danger of profanity, especially when it comes from poets, rappers, talk show hosts, film makers, comedians. The people we expect to have vision have led us into a cesspool.

We need new vision. We need people strong enough not to profanely reflect the disgusting morals many business leaders and my fellow politicans cultivate under noble words.

A truly spiritual emphasis by churches will attract people longing for goodness, who need an alternative to our profane greedy culture. These seekers desperately avoid the cynicism of profanely complaining about injustices. They wait to be inspired, to have somewhere to go to trust and feel honestly, to speak freely, to see how good others are.

We need artists to change, to create grand visions, even if it means producing less and making less money. Artists need to combine their anger and frustration with beauty so that listeners and viewers do not lose their spirit or their faith in institutions and America.

I think we have lost our ability to dream, not to fantasize about becoming rich, but to dream about a humble home where we can watch our children play in the back yard, and then, at middle age have the grandchildren come over for pie and a dip in the plastic wading pool we take delight in inflating.

These things make families happy. They make our neighborhoods stable and America great. You can always swear if you break your leg or get stung by a bee. People will understand.

There is a place for everything. We have misplaced profanity by using it all the time because we do not feel free. We show the extent of how powerless we are by how much we swear.

When Americans say we have the right to free speech, that humans have a right to free speech, we need to think our profanity through. Rather than challenge others to say why you shouldn’t be profane, ask yourself something. Will anyone dying, longing for peace, looking for truth or justice or courage, maturity, manhood, wisdom or spirituality be inspired by your profanity?

The President Speaks: Animal Rights

I am eager to talk today about animal rights. This is an important issue because it reveals a lot about us as a nation.

People who advocate for these rights are zealous. They understandably oppose hunting, slaughterhouses and the use of animals in research.

Advocates feel they are progressive in their zealousness. They assume America will have progressed when it has more respect for animals.

But animal rights advocates do not seem willing to listen or to admit they might be wrong. They do not acknowledge that maybe hunting is a wonderful way to be outdoors, that people enjoy meat and should not be forced to do without it, that researching on amimals helps science develop new medicines.

Advocates respond saying hunters murder. They say that there are other things to do outdoors besides hunt. They also say animals are in prison waiting to be slaughtered and that scientists are sadists torturing amimals.

Adocates think that they shine the light of morality and spirituality on American selfishness. They don’t. Their vision, like a lot of our American passion, is fashionable. They love to claim Western culture and science have destroyed the world – if only we were like the Hopis.

If somebody else is humbled by passion in The Bible, terrified of the hatred the Athenians and Spartans had for each other because it reminds him of ours and disgusted because previous presidents tried to transform our republic like Ceasar did his, animal rights advocates will smile at him. They well say those things are irrelevant today.

They will say we need to get beyond them. The person marvelling at Western history and culture will be told he needs an imagination cultivated by anything not Western.

A person listening to the advocates feels small. The person feels small because he is talked down to and because the advocates are narrow.

Nobody wants to feel small. When somebody makes someone else feel small, it is because that person is small himself.

Animal rights advocates do not ask themselves why they feel small, why they use their right to free speech to insult people, but do not form unions to give themselves rights at work and do not knock on doors to invite people to oppose our police state and the decreasing number of rights we have.

When animal rights advocates talk about animals in zoos as being in jail, the advocates forget that millions of American men need rights and guidance so they do not end up in jail.

Advocating for animal rights would be noble if it was based on respect for animals. As it is, advocates hate big business, hunters, meat eaters and any group of people who succeed in our system, more than they love animals.

Some animal rights advocates have gone to jail for their actions. They are proud of it. But it would be more courageous and a challenge or inspiration to others, if you were fired for starting a union at work, arrested for speaking against the Patriot Act and hated for saying most of our prisons should be closed and our young men provided jobs and job training.

Then you would be making people feel small in a proper way. They would feel small because they realize what they are up against. They would feel small because they are not doing anything to fight for themselves.

The world does not need to be conquered to be improved. I’d like to see animal rights advocates find out where the barking dogs in your neighborhood live, then force the owners to keep them quiet. You would benefit yourself, your neighbors and the dogs.

Think how good it would feel knowing that you kept cool while infuriated, that you did not speak rudely though you were determined to win. Think how proud and how strong you would feel.

Think of the example you would set, that you weren’t rude like the rude neighbor, that the neighbor, if he hated you, would hate you for your maturity. You would inspire others to feel big, and to seek the spiritual power that you have.

The President Speaks: Commencement address

It is an honor for me to speak to you this afternoon at your commencement ceremony. Not everyone is lucky enough to attend college. Not everyone has the good fortune to graduate from such a venerable and prestigious university.

At the same time, many people pooh pooh a college education. Maybe they do because they are envious. Maybe they do because they are lazy. Maybe because they lack imagination and can’t see the value in going to college, except to get a job.

One of the failings of our society is that we have made money the only thing that determines a person’s worth. This belief has influenced universities and colleges, both how they perceive themselves and how they are perceived.

The public no longer looks to universities as keepers of the truth of Western Culture. Universities no longer see their role to be educating students in Western history and philosophy. Large segments of the uneducated public no longer lust for Homer, the Greek tragedies, Plato, Shakespeare.

One critic of our academic culture, the late Alan Bloom, wrote that the public does not take the mission of a university seriously anymore because universities no longer teach Truth, nor are proud of the ideas and ideals that have influenced Western Culture and America. Rather he said, universities have caved in to pressure to teach that Truth is relative, that someone who reads mostly modern works has an equally valid claim to be educated than someone who is conversant about our tradition of literature, philosophy and political writings.

So, professor Bloom writes, someone who lusts for Truth, who aches to understand The Bible and Plato, has nowhere to go because our universities do not take the great books, with all their potential for emotion and thought, seriously.

My point is that there is something called Truth. If we do not believe in the truths of our tradition, we seriously lack imagination and we magnificently manifest cowardice. We are willing to crumble to the competition from Islam, Feminism, Multiculturalism, Homocentricism, and still unfortunately, Communism.

It isn’t that Islam, Feminism and Communism should not be studied. They should. So should histories of different regions and countries. But the assumption should be that Western morals are the best, that other philosophies can best be used to see where we are weak, not to replace our tradition.

It is true that the cannon is still taught. But it is not taught as the Truth. Multiculturalists and feminists would ban the great books of the West if they could.

For now they can’t. But they are working on it.

There is more to this than just objective truth. To be a great individual, you have to be true to what is in you. The point of Socrates and Jesus is that they were true to what was beautiful in them, no matter what the price.

The Western tradition has always balanced the subjective and objective truth. There is not this balance in our opposing religions, philosophies and isms. They are not seeking a better world for everyone, only their own group. They do not encourage members of their group to think outside of the box.

Universities have thought outside the box for too long. It is time to return to it, to encourage students to read The Bible every day until they finish, to read Phaedrus every couple of years until they understand it and can talk about love and true speech, to read The Tempest until the closing scence makes them unable to read anything else for days.

I mentioned talking about what was read. One of the weaknesses of the Western academic tradition is that professors were not required, and did not seek, unlike the East, to explain their knowledge to ordinary people in everyday words.

Multiculturalists seek to get their word out. They are aggressive and unashamed, though their ideas cannot hold a candle to the Western tradition.

Not only that, they have no fear. But their courage does not come from Truth or love or love of the Truth. It comes from hate, resentment, momentum and being part of a group that is fashionable.

Those of you here today are the most educated people in America. I want you to be proud of it. I especially want those of you who majored in one of the Western humanities to bring your fire, vision and gratitude into the world.

Tell people that the greatness of Western culture lies in the belief that you can find the God in you, either by being generous like Jesus or by not being greedy like Socrates, by living for love of the poor or love of simplicity, not a hatred of rich people.

You graduates are in a dilemma. You will be called elitists. But if you give up your positions and your wealth, and if you are not proud of your education, you will be laughed at.

My advice is to be proud of your education and your career. But do not flaunt your wealth. Be humble and assertive.

Tell the publilc that Socrates and Jesus were spiritually free. Jesus attained his freedom because of a great tradition. Socrates attained his because of a relatively new form of government. There was room in each of those situations to be free, but even then you had to be careful.

Jesus and Socrates were not careful. They knew they had become beautiful. They did not want to compromise their beauty to be accepted into ugliness.

Our society does its best to cultivate ugliness, whether it’s my fellow politicians, the advertising industry, multiculturalism or feminism, or the glorification of homosexuality, bisexuality and transgenderhood.

These are lonely times. You must choose between how you are lonely. Do you want to be lonely because you see the light and are overwhelmed by your struggle to be true and beautiful? Or do you want to be lonely because you chose darkness and the false power of espousing ugliness?

My graduates, it has truly been an honor to speak today. I love America. I love our Western tradition.

I hope I inspire you to be daring. Courageous good will is the only thing that can save America and the West from all our internal enemies.

Thank you.

The President Speaks: Cross country hiking trails

I’m standing in the middle of Kansas ready to sign the Coast to Coast Border to Border bill that Congress has presented to me. There has seldom been a bill that has been passed with so much enthusiasm from so many groups and politicians. I am eager to sign it.

Before I do, I want to take these few moments to thank Congress for its co-operation with one another and its patience and high standards. I congratulate the staff and all the departments and companies that have worked on this bill. Finally, I want to tell the American people how much I admire you for pushing to come in contact with this great land we have inherited.

This bill will allow Americans the freedom to use their bodies to travel across our country. If we use this freedom, we will feel a greater love for our country, more enthusiasm toward one another and great personal pride for having seen on foot or by bicycle the extent of our land.

Hunger for land is what made our nation expand, and created this marvel we call the United States of America. Our new hunger is not based upon greed, but a realization that we were overzealous in our lust and that now we need to mature as a nation.

Our lust takes a daring direction. Though we have hungered for land the past 100 years, we labored in factories, offices and warehouses to get it. We were not physically attached to it.

Now, having been inside so long and so much, we have gotten hungry to touch, smell and wander through land – lots of it. Our homes and gardens and country property have tintillated us for something majestic.

We long for a breakdown in barriers. This is a majestic hope, for we have been fenced in a long time, literally and figuratively. Owning is not enough. Having refuge from each other is not enough.

We are eager to walk for days with someone of another color, another age, another walk of life, another class, another philosophy. We want to finally feel what it means to be free, to have confidence to listen without the need to interrupt and speak without being hurried or trying to win.

We are, in a sense, seeking truth. We are seeking to unite this nation of so many different types of people the way democracy is supposed to unite people. We are seeking to find our souls the only place that they can be found – outdoors with each other.

We are also redeeming the nation – cherishing land so many of our ancestors destroyed, seeking stillness and silence they did not understand. Where they hurried, we long to linger.

At last we live the enthusiasm of our visionaries Thoreau, Whitman, Muir, Bob Marshall. A land best serves its people when it is bicycled or walked across.

This bill, it is one of America’s greatest dreams and pronouncements, for we are saying we are ready to transform our fear of each other, that it is time to expand our hearts, find our essential love and participate in the greatness that has been promised to Americans who have the courage and wisdom to pursue it.

A new American Revolution has begun. I now put my pen to paper.

The President Speaks: Mother’s Day

I want to greet the nation this Mother’s Day morning, as we praise and thank the woman who has given us so much and asked so little. It is this kind of attitude that makes for a civilized country. May we all develop this way of living as our own, so that in whatever aspect of life we are engaged in, we too will give more than we get or ask for.

A lot of women snicker at Mother’s Day. They think it is a ploy for business to make money. They think women deserve more than this. They say they don’t want honor they want power, or they want power along with honor.

There is a conflict between women about what kind of mother is superior – the mother who does not want a career or an influential job in business or government, or the mother who wants to work at a well-paid influential career while expecting her employer or the government to pay for child care?

The conflict is, is the woman, married or single, going to be the adult who spends most of the day with children under five, or is a company’s daycare staff going to spend most of the time with the children? Is society going to trust professional baby sitters more than America’s mothers?

This last question is important because it relates to the commercialization of Mother’s Day. If Mother’s Day is demeaning because of its crass commercialism, why isn’t it demeaning for children to be sent to school when they are two, to have shopping and conformity pounded into them. Those are supposed to be the years of magic and spontanaiety, with hours outside playing and exploring and developing a free independent mind.

In the past the role of the family was to act as a balance to the influence of government and business. If business promoted greed, the family encouraged children to lead a simple life. When the government became oppressive, the family knew it could trust each other.

With the power of business and government increasing, I am suprised that women do not act upon their self-proclaimed wisdom to do everything they can to keep their children away from daycare.

There is another way to look at the issue. Women demand numerous rights.

One right they insist on is not to be told whether or not to have children. But there is no pride to match the rhetoric. If a woman wants to have a child, then she cannot expect taxpayers to pay for her child’s daycare, or a customer to be willing to pay more for a product so she can bring her child to her company’s daycare facility.

America desperately needs its mothers to spend more time with their children, to rise against the constant stimulation and organization of America’s children.

Traditionally we have looked to men to inspire and ingrain children with a love for freedom. These times however, favor women.

It is women, more than men, who talk about freedom and who lust for freedom. Your children need you to light the flame of individualism in them.

America will then reclaim its pride as it celebrates our titans of liberty every Mother’s Day.

The President Speaks: Energy

As I stand outside of this new energy efficient industrial complex, I want to thank Congress for its timely legislation. I was never so proud to sign a bill that benefitted so many people throughout the world.

But I also want to thank the owners of this complex, who went above and beyond federal requirements. Not only will this complex produce less pollution than any plant in the world, the products produced here will be some of the worlds most efficient. On top of that, when the product no longer works or you the customer can no longer use the product, it can be easily recycled in a quick and efficient manner.

But what interests me the most about this complex is its architecture and landscaping. It is not beautiful, yet it feels good to sit outside during lunch. One does not moan as one approaches the building like when going to work at most places. Once inside there is no shortage of breathe or an oppressive stimulation of the senses.

When you are inside you feel alive. You breathe deep. Your stimulation comes from feeling good, not defending the assault on your body.

In a sense, this complex is creating energy efficient renewable people that are difficult to wear out. This is a tremendous accomplishment, a world with increasingly less pollution and increasingly more energetic people.

Our natural world will retain and regain its splendors. Americans willl look better and feel better. We will become as beautiful inside as people working inside can. The challenge is to make this beauty endure. Business has to stick to creating superb products and healthy work areas. It must not change its focus to pleasing investors, but must retain its focus on making quality merchandise.

Investors must not seek to get rich quick, or utilize methods to cover up what they are doing with their money. Investors need to think in the long term. Reasonable long term gains expected from an investment in ecologically efficient companies will ensure that an investor’s wealth can be spent in a world that is a pleasure for an old person to live in.

I have great faith that business leaders will continue to rise to the occasion. I am not so certain of our investors. That is why I try to persuade them to have restraint.

This is a new era for the nation. Seldom is the working person presented with a work environment like what we have here today. There will be more of these environments, ushering in a new sense of happiness and optimism.

It is important for Americans to build upon this happiness and optimism, to share the good will their bosses are exemplifying. The new sense of relaxation, health and constructive stimulation can do wonders for individuals, famlies and the nation. Everyone must let these benefits take root.

It might be tempting to abuse the good will of the employer by calling in sick like you have always done. Now that you feel better, it is important that you mature so that the nation comes to feel and be as good spiritually as it does physically.

Our environmental crises is also a social crises. In addition to businesses cleaning up the environment and making work a healthy place and no longer a nightmare, the American citizen must do his and her part to rid themself of the bitterness and mistrust that has plagued our nation for so long.

Spend more time talking with each other now that you are not stressed and the grounds around work and the rest areas at work are conducive to conversation and mental health. With less stress and more healthful stimulation, you can discard your old habits of being busy and acquisitive.

You can begin to show the faith in each other and consequently the nation, that more and more employers show in you. Where employers are more willing to give up absurd profits, Americans need to stop buying so much and be content with much less. When you do this, you will have less of a sense of self-importance and be more willing to see others as friends rather than as threats or someone to outdo.

This faith in each other will be the bedrock of a great new America.

We are not great now.

If we rid ourselves of our toxicity, then thrive on healthy stimulation, we will develop good habits that we can vow to keep even when times become difficult. For it is the average American, not business or government, that determines our character.

The President Speaks: Sexual assault awareness month

This evening I would like to address the nation regarding one of our most frightening problems. The problem is rape.

I know this is a sensitive topic for almost every woman. Women fear to walk alone at night or to be in a park alone in daylight.

A lot of people wonder why so many men rape. To some people rape is an example of the violence of Capitalism manifesting itself in our shopping areas and neighborhoods.

Other say that men are over-stimulated by pornography and sex in the media. Because they cannot realistically live a fantasy, their rage creates nightmares for women.

Another point of view is that since men are psychologically weaker than women, men are more likely to become psychotic or feel powerless in our increasingly alienating society. Rape makes rapers feel powerful.

This is where I want to take off from.

Men, generally do not feel powerful. There is nothing for millions of young men to do. Most of our talk of empowerment is intended for females.

There is no encouragement for boys and men to feel empowered, that is, powerful and confident. Boys are preached at to not disrespect girls, not to treat them as sex objects.

Yet girls are not reprimanded for the macho behavior so many girls exhibit. Girls are told they can be as sexual as they want at whatever age they want.

Girls are never told to dress modestly to prevent boys from becoming aroused and then aggressive. They are not told to be modest so boys have respect toward women and female sexuality.

Boys are told boys are the problem. Boys are told that by nature they do not, but ought to, respect women and girls.

Since the 1980s men at work and in college have been told they are potential rapists. Well-educated influential and powerful women preach about a culture of rape.

Preaching about a culture of rape breeds fear. Women who were cautious become terrified. Women who loved to go places alone stop going.

The women who feel the most empowered in America today are those who preach this culture of rape. If there had been no feminism,, they would have built a career talking about an epidemic of burglaries or the need for a huge militrary to fight terrorists.

Their lust to make others afraid has been successful. They’ve made young women afraid to trust men, but to depend on feminists. They have established laws that a man can be accused of rape or harrassment without evidence.

Men fear being charged with a sex crime they did not committ. Men are ashamed to smile at a woman or appear confident around women.

What used to be an expression of good will becomes a sexual advance. What used to be an act of courage is no longer considered the first step in a possible romance, but something that violates a woman’s privacy. That is why men feel disempowered and weak.

It is not surprising that rape is prevalent. The revenge that feminists seek on men is reciprocated by rapists seeking revenge on women.

I want my listeners to think for a moment. Suppose there is a frustrated angry man that is eager to lash out at a woman.

Suppose he hates what is boiling in him. Suppose he decides, “I need help.”

He wants to go to a counselor to talk about his sick desire. If he approaches a counselor, the counselor will call the police.

The police will arrest him. He will have a global positioning chip implanted in him. His photograph and name will be posted on the web.

He will be known all over the nation as a potential rapist. What should be praised as an act of common sense, courage and wisdom is turned against the man. Instead of moving forward he is forced backwards.

It is important if we want rape to end, to allow men to have more power. Work offers few opportunities to be powerful or feel powerful.

The place for men to feel powerful is in the home. The behavior of children, especially sons, must become the responsibility of the father.

But fathers are in a dilemma. They are told there is violence against women. They are told a child must not be spanked or hit because that is child abuse.

How are young men going to be respectful if they are raised without a father? If they have a father, how can they not help but be disrespectful if they and their fathers know that the father will not discipline them because he fears to be arrested for child abuse?

It is acceptable to accuse a man of a rape he did not commit and to label men potential rapists, but it is not legal to hit one’s obnoxious bullying disobedient child. This is not right.

I asked earlier why men commit this horrible crime. I do not think it has happened in a vacum. In the 1960s America’s middle class and upper middle class young people claimed that there was nothing immoral about their promiscuous lifestyle.

In the 1970s homosexuals were more promiscuous than the hippies. Homosexuals claimed to have a right to be promiscuous.

A snowball effect occurred. One could be permissive with each gender. An unmarried nineteen year old woman had no qualms about having a baby she could not support. One could have a sex change operation if one felt inadequate.

It makes sense. If so many groups were proud of their selfish lifestyles, then a warped man is going to have no qualms to do what he feels like doing.

We have to change society’s attitudes towards sex and violence. Abortions should be discouraged. Promiscuity must be looked down upon. Hollywood and the media must stop glorifying sex and violence. Homosexuality should not be glorified. Bisexuals need to be labelled wish-washy. A woman’s sexual freedom must end when she expects the government to pay for her baby.

What about properly convicted rapists? Jail them. Offer them no sympathy.

Most of you have heard the phrase No name. No shame. No blame. It applies to females who want to avoid responsibility for their fetus, or who feel they might hit their babies.

We need something like this for men who are in a rage and who are willing to try to stop their rage from causing violence. There must be counselling for men so men can express their pain, their horrible thoughts, feelings and desires without being reported to the police or presented to the media.

A final thing. Though feminism as a term is not dominant among young people, the influence of feminists remains stupendous.

Every man is perceivced by feminists to be a potential rapist. Consequently every man can be accused of rape under false or flimsy allegations.

As long as feminists write family law and rape law and set the agenda of what will be taught in schools, there will be the fear and shame and rage that causes men to rape. There will also be a fear of being raped that is blown out of proportion by women who love women and men to live in fear.

Good night.

The President Speaks: Opening Day

It’s a thrill for me to be throwing out the first ball today. Though I am as cold as the rest of you, we are all warmed by the promise of the new season, the hope that springs eternal in our hearts.

Baseball, more than any sport, inspires hope. I think this is because there is no time limit. No matter how far behind you are, with skill and courage and a lot of luck, you can still win. Time will never run out.

This feeling that time will never run out is part of the season. Days are getting longer then stay long. There are no worries. We feel the future will always be like this, that there will always be youth, there will always be heroes and there will always be another season to improve our talents or finally use them to their fullest.

When Fall comes we see players in a different light. Rookies look even younger. The sparkle in the veteran’s eye is one for the ages. Long shadows on the field have us dreaming of next year’s glory or cheering the end of an era.

On this bright chilly day a new year is about to begin. We step out of the shadow of winter into this beacon we call baseball season.

It is my pleasure and honor to throw out the first ball.

The President Speaks: Infrastructure

Today we Americans look forward to the future with more hope than in recent memory. The bill that I have just signed, our new Infrastructure Project, is not earth shattering in terms of ideas. None of our plans had not already been practiced somewhere. But the bill is momumental because so many things are going to get done that have needed to be done for many years.

When people talk about infrastructure, they usually mean highways, railroads, waterways and airports. I will talk about these.

First though, since we live in an age of communication, I will speak about communication. Because of the importance of computers and television, access needs to be available to everyone.

The Federal Government will assist married couples and single people earning less than the standard threshold. The government will pay for a satellite dish, cable TV hookup and internet access.

In the past, many rural areas and all poor school districts had no access to cable television or the internet. Now the Federal Government is requiring cable and internet providers to serve rural areas. For poor school districts, the government is funding computer labs at all the schools.

The government will assist schools in other ways. Local school districts will continue to pay for academics. The federal government will fund music departments in middle schools and high schools. Treasuries will be sold to finance career programs and manual skill programs such as computer repair, graphic arts, electrical repair and woodshop.

Treasuries will also be sold to construct new hospitals and to expand and refurbish existing ones.

Communication, Education, Health. These come first. As part of our health policy, in addition to the program for hospitals is a program for drinking water. Pruification plants will be constructed in all the parts of the country where water quality is not as high as it was.

The quality of air has also been targeted for improvement. All airports will be connected to their urban center by a lite rail system. Rail service on Amtrak will be greatly expanded.

Though we need to reduce our dependency on the automobile and the pollution it causes, we cannot not pollute. We can only make pollution less bad.

We wil upgrade our railroad right of ways so trains run smoother and faster and use less fuel.

Now here is one part of the bill that caused controversy. The bill has arranged for the construction of six new oil refineries: two on the east, west and gulf coasts. The facilities are planned to be several times less polluting than older refineries. The benefits to the nation in terms of supply and price of gasoline will be great.

But it isn’t just the money saved and the convenience of not worrying about running out of gasoline. The vision for the refineries shows that we are finally brave enough to say we will do something about our overall decline in manufacturing.

While the refineries are being constructed, highways will be improved. Americas bridges will be made sounder. For those who live along interstate and U.S. highways, sound walls will be constructed to keep noise out of neighborhoods.

Like those along freeways need to be protected from the noise of traffic, those who live along rivers need to be protected from floods. Levees will be upgraded with federal funding.

The last area I want to cover is the technologies that were introduced in the 1970s and 1980s. The federal government is providing funding for solar panels on new buildings. This will reduce the need for non-renewable forms of electricity and allow for smoother operation of our electrical grids.

On federal lands, wind turbines wil be installed to generate electricity. With the fear that droughts will increase, this was a necessary step.

In closing I am grateful to members of the house and senate who worked tirelessly on this bill. I also want to thank those in industry, government, business and academia who provided their expertise.

These projects that I have described should make us proud that America is back on track, that after so many years of unnecessary war, we are beginning to do what we should have started thirty years ago.

The President Speaks: President’s Day

I greet you my fellow Americans on this holiday that merges the birthdays of our two most famous presidents.

What is interesting is that one president owned slaves while the other freed them. One was born with good connections, making better use of them than anyone expected, while the other, of humble origins, believed in then achieved the American dream.

Each of these men sacrificed for his country. One commanded and led an army, risking death continually to create a new nation. The other also commanded an army, seeking to preserve what the first president helped create.

As cynical as our times are, we must not lose sight of their greatness. Washington wanted no compensation for all of his time and the risks he took.

Lincoln, perhaps not pure in his decision to free slaves, was pure in his conviction that Americans show no animosity to each other after the war. He was a healer in the spiritual meaning of the word.

It is this spirituality that made America great. Washington could not have done so much for free without the religious values Puritans brought to the continent. Lincoln could not have dreamed of being president and also of doing something great for humanity without his unshakeable faith in God and the knowledge that he could turn to The Bible for inspiration, wisdom and catharsis.

This is important, for when people say there must be a separation of church and state, they usually mean religion is dangerous and should not influence politics. That isn’t how our Founding Fathers saw it, how Puritans saw it or how Lincoln saw it.

The Puritans, who I admit were highly opinionated, believed that politics ruins religion more than religion ruins politics. They believed people should live their lives exemplifying the best in religious principles, and that they ought to religiously watch and act to prevent government from dictating what moral principles will be followed.

Our Founding Fathers admired the Puritans. They knew it was the Puritans who provided the spark for liberty the patriots inflamed, and they knew the spark for liberty came from religion not politics.

What the Founding Fathers may not have known is that the fire that burned so bright in the Puritans was fed by belief in the Second Coming, that the patriots were using the energy from that conviction to start a rebellion and create a nation.

It was this nation Lincoln felt he had to save. He knew the nation’s principles were not created by men but by God. Lincoln knew too that he was serving God and giving a new life to those who had been denied by men the freedom God gave them at birth.

In our cynical times we look past lofty principles. We look for hypocrisy.

We say Washington owned slaves so he does not deserve respect and cannot possibly be a hero. We say Lincoln originally felt black men to be inferior, so his first thought must diminish his decisions to free slaves and reunite the nation.

My countrymen, our cynicism makes us an unhappy and uninspiring country. Our lust to label someone a hypocrite reveals how little we believe in ourselves and how naive we are not to realize that greatness and goodness are not going to be perfect.

Our hypocrisy watch also shows the world how foolish we are. We would rather blindly reject a hero because of his bad points, than blindly assume our hero could do no wrong.

With this attitude we cannot be great again. We need heroes to inspire us so we can make the changes America needs to make.

Two changes are to stop suing and stop being promiscuous. These acts could lay the grouondwork for truly heroic acts like opposing the Patriot Act and our police state.

We feel we have the right to sue. We think we are free when all barriers are dropped in our sex lives. Unfortuneately, this self-centeredness keeps us from worrying about freedoms far greater than these: such as not being watched by police and having no fear of being arrested for something we said or something we might do.

There is nothing heroic about lusting for a lawsuit or the seduction of strangers. There is everything heroic about complaining police have too much power and laws need to change so we cannot be arrested for our opinion or our appearance.

Most Americans have no position of power to do something like Washington or Lincoln did. Yet as a nation, if we have courage and wisdom we can act heroically.

A characteristic Washington and Lincoln had to complement their ambition and vision is restraint. Our nation has ambition but no vision. Most importantly we have no restraint.

It is our lack of restraint that makes us cynical of true heroes. It is the lack of restraint that makes us glorify false heroes.

We need to stop being slaves to our worst passions. We need to seek once again to be a free people, to risk our lives for the freedom God gave us.

We must honor our greatest heroes. We must fight for and exemplify true freedom. We must be the shining star for our grand children that the Puritans were for the Founding Fathers and the Founding Fathers were for Lincoln.