by Chuck George by Chuck George
STATE OF THE UNION ( SATIRE ! )
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary ( SATIRE ! )
January 31, 2006
State of the Union Address
Chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives The United States Capitol Washington, D.C.
President’s Remarks; corrected copy, 8:55 P.M. EST, January 31, 2006
An Epiphany; Restoration of the Constitution: State of the Union 2006 9:10 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, fellow citizens:
First: a brief announcement:
The text from which I am reading is a vast departure from that which was distributed this morning.
The United States of America will radically alter direction in its policy profile in both the international arena and on the domestic scene, effective as I speak. We will no longer seek empire or hegemony on the world scene; we will strive to realize the vision of the Founders here at home.
I apologize to the Democratic Congresspeople, and many of the Republican, because they have not been given a chance to study this edition of tonight's address. I would urge that they not say too much until they read it, study it, discuss it, and read the book referred to below, and think it all over. I'm sure the media will give them lots of time to express their ideas, especially the objections.
Several months ago arrangements were made for me to meet and confer at some length with an intellectual person of renown in his field of socio-politico-economics. He and the small group gathered got my attention. We met several times, sort of a seminar, and we expanded our attendance from meeting to meeting. I read a book [pause for laughter].
All of this was carried on in utmost secrecy, not State secrecy, but the secrecy of a group dedicated to ideas which, if broadcast, would excite variable responses that would doom it from the outset but which ideas are correct, noble, practical, workable and necessary and will be effected.
Effectively, I have enjoyed an epiphany; I have been introduced to a school of thought that I am now convinced is correct and the only course for this great Republic to take. Those convictions carry with them the realization that the course we have followed since 2001 has been terribly, terribly wrong. The course that we have followed since 1933 has been terribly wrong. The course that we have followed since 1913 has been terribly wrong. And there were some pretty glaring wrongs before then.
We are reversing course in the interest of the people of the United States, in the interest of their God-given, Natural and Constitutionally guaranteed rights as citizens, in the interest of their material welfare in a new (to our generations) economy that will perceptibly enhance the life style of the typical household within weeks, while, at the same time, allowing each individual to pursue his happiness as he chooses.
There will be some rough spots in the adjustments to our new profile – mostly in the form of problems from people who don't see the light. But the beneficial effects will begin to show within days and will shine dramatically within weeks. We will remain the leading power in the world, we will leap ahead (not like Mao) and will shine, we will become a beacon that the rest of the world may follow or not, but will ignore to their own disadvantage. It will be leadership by example.
That's big talk.
Just wait.
We'll start tonight with the international scene. In Iraq I was convinced that there was evil out there that we had the power and obligation to destroy. I was wrong: some of the evil existed and we have eliminated the obvious but we uncovered a hornets' nest of other evils that we didn't foresee. I've become acquainted with the law of unforeseen consequences through my own example.
We have neither the right nor the power to overcome the forces extant. We will withdraw our forces from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately.
We are not forgetting nor ignoring 9/11/2001; the war on terror…, that is written with lower case letters, will continue in an entirely different form. It is already underway but, for obvious reasons, the new course for combating terror will remain a State secret for now.
I've been assured by senior military and intelligence staff that the withdrawals can be accomplished reasonably quickly and safely. The people of Iraq and Afghanistan can be assured that we won't be bombing their children and grandparents any more, effective now…, immediately.
Around the world we have hundreds of military bases of all sizes and character that intrude in the sovereignty of nations and people. These are resented mightily by people of all stripes around the world. They are the basis of much of the hatred manifested toward These United States.
Most of these installations will be closed immediately and the thousands of GIs scattered out there will be coming home. We will further develop our human intelligence and our various electronic (not to include unwarranted wire-tapping of Americans) and satellite intelligence capabilities to replace the intrusive stations.
Our intelligence henceforth will literally be directed at defense…, DEFENSE.
Our Defense Department will be postured for defense…, DEFENSE.
We will retain two massive and expensive functions of the military for some unforeseen period in the future. We will assume, unilaterally, an active Mutually Assured Destruction stance toward all of the nuclear powers. We will destroy any force, and its sources, which uses nuclear weapons or is on the verge of doing so, if it can be unequivocally confirmed. We will use big sticks. Curtis LeMay, where are you?
To supplement that we will continue to work on Ballistic Missile Defense. It is feasible; it will be expensive. BMD and MAD will be the big-ticket items. They will always be considered temporary, defensive necessities under continuous review, to modify, decrease or eliminate as soon as it is found safe to do so.
Defense of North America will be the sole function of the Defense Department. We will not announce our defensive perimeter but will be talking with our immediate neighbors as soon as they are ready to talk.
Foreign aid has been one of the darkest chapters in our modern history. Most of such aid has gone to dictators who were "in our pockets." Literally, the money has gone to the dictators and their cronies, not to the people of these horribly disadvantaged countries. The people have been disadvantaged by the oppression of their tyrannical dictators made affordable by the bribery we have supplied. This also is a basis for much of the hatred toward These United States expressed around the world.
Henceforth there will be no foreign aid. Not only is foreign aid counterproductive and immoral, it is unconstitutional.
We will cease meddling in the affairs of other states. We will discontinue foreign aid. We will stop interfering with small powers seeking nuclear weapons, but we will remind them emphatically and frequently of our MAD policy. They will appreciate that "Mutual" is a euphemism and they will be far more "mutualed" than we or France or England will be.
We will withdraw from the United Nations immediately. The documents effecting this step are arriving at the United Nations buildings as I speak, awaiting arrival of the UN officials to accept them, tonight.
We shall invite the United Nations to find a new home on other shores within two years. Delegates to the United Nations will no longer be accorded diplomatic privileges while on American soil, effective immediately, tonight; the New York Police Department is being appraised of this right now.
We shall withdraw from all our defense treaties as soon as the process can be concluded; the process has been started.
There will no longer be favored nation status for some of our trading partners. All trading partners and potential trading partners will be on an equal basis in the eyes of the United States government. Our industries and commerce will be free to trade and negotiate on whatever terms they can find.
We will eliminate all protective tariffs, import and export, immediately. We shall eliminate import and export quotas immediately. We shall eliminate internal subsidies immediately, industrial, farm and all the others. (We shall be watching our trading partners for reciprocity and will be considering retaliatory, focused tariffs or quotas where we find trade practices unequivocally deemed unfair.)
That will be the essence of our foreign policy. There will be cries of isolationism but I'm not so sure Lindbergh and Taft and Jefferson and Washington were so far off base. We will, henceforth, mind our own business, promote commerce and friendship, and avoid entanglements.
With regard to domestic issues we have mentioned some above and will elaborate on them further on. But, we're starting with the big issues. Some of these are just recommendations at this moment but we have been gratified at the response of the few leaders we have approached in utmost confidence. The executive department has initiated most of the plans that we can effect unilaterally. We are prepared to proceed to have these proposals passed and are confident we can do so. We will pull out all the big guns.
I and my allies, a small but rapidly growing group, will not hesitate to use the big "S" word, SOCIALIST, and its close cousin WELFARIST in describing those whose so-called liberal bent earns them such a label. Socialism and welfarism have been proven, on the world stage, and pretty well here in America to be absolute losers. There was no place for such stuff in the view of the Founders; there is no place for such stuff today. The great American middle, of all ethnic and racial origins, does not like the concepts of socialism and welfarism and centralism.
Another word of pejorative tone which we will toss about liberally is, CENTRIST, referring to the tendency ever since 1789 to concentrate power in a central government. Those persons thus labeled will be dismayed to find what a large part of the media we have discretely found to be sympathetic with our efforts. And there is the internet which will be of interest to peruse, effectively now. We have been gratified at the discretion we have been able to maintain to date. This confirms the validity of the cause and the loyalty of the participants.
Several Amendments to the Constitution of These United States will be offered immediately for Congress's consideration. I expect them to be passed by the requisite super majorities of both houses and be sent to the States before the really big legislative packages are sent up ten days from now. More amendments will be proposed soon thereafter, as the dust settles. The legislators may be subjected to some persuaders to which they are not accustomed in the next few hours, days and weeks.
Amendments to the Constitution: not a common subject for State of the Union addresses; I presume they'll start numbering with amendment XXVIII – twenty-eight…, as they are ratified.
First, I'll present the repeals of and deletions from the Constitution as it stands. These pertain almost entirely to the Amendments. Some clarifying Amendments to the body of the Constitution will be offered.
Many of these proposals aim to restore the relationship between the States and the federated government which was intended by most of the Founders and by most or all of the attendees at the ratifying conventions of the various States. Specifically: they are offered in recognition that the States are sovereign entities which did join together and are joined together to form a federated government for the purpose of furthering some few common interests of those States, and for nothing more.
The references in the Second Amendment to "Militia" and to "security" will be deleted, by way of clarification. Those who would quibble in claiming that, "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State," has a diluting effect on the principal sentence will have no quibble left. The 2nd Amendment shall read, only: "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed."
A new amendment to clarify and strengthen the guarantee of the inviolability of the individual or corporate right to possess private property will replace the concluding provision of the Fifth Amendment. This new amendment will be considered a part of the Bill of Rights and will be included in the package imposed upon the States to be described later. Eminent Domain will have some very stiff tests.
A non-amendment will be a Super-Act that will require the Congress to give full faith and credit to the extant guarantees of the rights of the States and of the people explicit in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments. In this Super-Act the Congress will require itself to confirm these rights by passing a new resolution at the beginning of each legislative session so stating, and that there will be a phrase or sentence so stating in each and every act of legislation passed henceforth. Just a reminder.
The Fourteenth Amendment: Section 1: all after the 20th and 21st words, the "United States," referring to the relationship between each of the sovereign States and its citizens shall be repealed. In Section 2 the phrases pertaining to the election of State officials shall be deleted. Section 3 shall be repealed. Section 4 shall be repealed.
The Sixteenth Amendment providing for the imposition of income taxes shall be repealed.
The Seventeenth Amendment providing for the popular election of senators shall be repealed. The original wording of Section 3 of Article I will be restored. Senators will be chosen by the legislatures of their respective States, as originally intended…, and with good reason.
Next, we'll offer term limits. This is a draconian step but it is seen as necessary to return the concept of representation to the healthier view of it being representation by citizen politicians. Hopefully we will begin to see our representatives at all levels as honorable, decent citizens rather than the nasty reputation they have earned to date.
The presidency will be extended to five years and will be limited to one term.
The senatorial term will remain as it is, six years, but Senators will be limited to one term.
Representatives will continue to serve for two years but will be limited to one term, with the provision for a second and final term after at least six years have intervened between the end of their first term and the beginning of their second.
A new amendment will clarify that there is a right for individual or groups of States to secede from the federation. That is already apparent to many but the concept was set back badly in the 1860s. It needs to be restored. The amendment will be kept simple but will provide for legislation to consider terms of secession and future relations between the States and the Union.
A new amendment will formally define and expand the original Bill of Rights and will list the Amendments which will be included. They will be the original ten, the Thirteenth, the amended Fourteenth and Fifteenth, the Nineteenth, the Twenty-fourth, the Twenty-sixth and the new amendment assuring the right to property.
This amendment then will contain a provision requiring that each of the States shall incorporate the newly defined Bill of Rights within its Constitution. Policing and enforcement of that group of amendments will be the responsibilities of the individual States, but they must have them in their constitution. Failure to do so will result in consequences to be defined, but finally, if it comes to it, to expulsion from the Union.
In Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, the Commerce clause shall be amended to clarify that it will be interpreted in the very narrow sense of regulating the trade between the States, as originally intended, or will be deleted. The recommendation for that will be finalized within the next few days.
We need an amendment establishing that this country, henceforth, will enjoy the immense advantage of dealing entirely with commodity-based money. The gold standard will be returned, established and affirmed with the strength of a Constitutional Amendment.
Now, on to entitlements. The whole concept is wrong. No one is entitled to a piece of anyone else's property.
On the other hand, the United States has made many promises to most of its citizens. These can be considered contractual or they can be regarded as empty political promises. The contractual aspect must be acknowledged, at least to some extent.
Where there is a contractual element involved, as in Social Security, Medicare, military and other pensions, VA disabilities, etc., the programs will be closed out by formulation as fairly as possible. Funding will come from various sources, but sale of federal lands and other properties will provide much of it.
This is very complex and will take a few months to implement – but I expect it all to be authorized within the month.
Subsidies, grants and loans will cease immediately. The private sector will expand its present capabilities in these functions, without direction from the nanny State, and provide without missing a beat. And do a better job. Where there is no genuine need the funds won't be available. Some people will hurt. But this is the time for politicians to quit buying votes with financial redistribution. Look at it this way: you are all in your last term and there won't be any bye-bye boondoggles.
The executive departments are going, except for the classical four as established in President Washington's Cabinet. State will continue to exist; it will continue to perform many of the functions it does now. Many of the programs it now administers will be shut down, thrown out. We will talk with our brethren nations about the world but the subject material is going to be limited to friendship and trade and consular activities.
Treasury will continue to exist. As with all other departments it has an immense responsibility in the next several months overseeing its own shrinkage but also in advising and assisting the other departments in the financial and bookkeeping aspects of their demise. After the dust settles its mission statement will change, eliminating the hubris of its claim "to promote the conditions for prosperity and stability in the United States." Treasury will be the financial manager and bookkeeper for the government. Most of its offices and bureaus will be eliminated.
The Department of Justice will continue to be the advisor to the government for legal matters, but not much else. The most visible change will be the complete dissolution of the Drug Enforcement Agency which will become redundant with the repeal of all drug prohibition laws.
We are, in no way, endorsing or encouraging the use and abuse of recreational drugs. We will use the bully pulpit of my station to discourage such use, on the basis of health, practical concerns and of ethical and moral objections to such use. But, as a nation, we will enjoy the huge reduction in crime, petty and large, that will ensue as it did in 1933 with the repeal of alcohol prohibition. Some of the massive cost of prohibition can be used (at the local level) for prevention and rehabilitation of abuse.
The War Department was succeeded in 1949 by the Department of Defense and now, after these fifty-seven years, will finally be assigned as its primary responsibility, the defense of the United States. Heretofore the word Defense was pretty much euphemistic, considering our strategic and strike capabilities and practices over all these years. Unfortunately, we do feel obliged to maintain the MAD posture for a few more years at least.
With all the big spending programs – and all the little spending programs – gone and with billions and billions and billions not being wantonly thrown about, we have no further need for all those other departments that have had the burden of throwing all those billions around. Those departments will be closing down soon, thereby saving the billions it takes to operate them.
I'll list them; it's a long list; listen quickly for your favorite.
- First: Education
- Energy
- Housing & Urban Development
- Did I mention: Education?
- Labor
- Veterans Affairs
- Agriculture
- Commerce
- Health and Human Services
- Homeland Security
- Transportation
- Interior
- And, finally, Education.
Some of these departments will fold down fairly easily; some will require a lot of coordination, sale of materials and properties, accounting and accountability. The people at Interior probably still have a few years tenure because they are being tasked with overseeing the sale of all the government properties and lands that won't be needed to operate the government henceforth.
The secretaries of those departments are invited to remain in office if they find themselves sympathetic with these objectives and pledge themselves to exert themselves to the fullest to fulfill these ends. Otherwise, I shall look for their resignations on my desk by 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. I urge them to consider helping us with this effort because I am sure the leaders of this revolutionary activity will go down in history as the saviors of the American Dream.
The civil service people who lose their government employment won't be out of work long. Overall, the economy will improve so much and so rapidly that work will appear. You people generally are well trained and capable; for the free-loaders and sycophants there may be some rough times, but you'll survive.
Government has provided and does provide many essential or highly desirable functions; it has done and does so inefficiently and many disastrous unforeseen consequences have been created. The desirable functions that have market value will be bought out, otherwise privatized or created anew in the private sector. The entrepreneurs will weed out the inefficiencies. That gives lots of ex-civil servants plenty of employment, even, in many cases in the entrepreneurial role.
The vital functions without market value will find life in local non-profits (which term will take on much less significance) of all stripes. True needs will be much more evident and much more solvable on the local level. Again, many ex-civil servants will find work in their prior field; probably many will be leaders in these endeavors. Funding will come from charitable and other interested groups.
This country does remarkably well with charity – an honorable word – even in the presence of punitive taxation. With little or no taxation draining the earned wealth of the population, charity will blossom where needed.
Many of the functions of the government have been and are redundant boondoggles feeding the demands of various special interests. These won't and shouldn't survive in the free market milieu. Hooray.
This great realignment will demonstrate that it is truly the route to compassionate conservatism. Compassionate conservatism does not mean outspending your predecessor or the other side of the aisle. Those in need will be much better cared for. Those aspiring will be much less burdened in their efforts to improve themselves. That's true conservatism. That's true compassion.
In 1946 a book was published that should be compulsory reading for every high school student. Understand me…, their parents should compel them to read it. It is a concise and clear, easy to understand, explication of how the world works economically. I promise you it is easy reading and clearly understandable – as I said, I read it and I understood it and I believe its premises. That's what tonight and the next several months are all about. Not that this one book and this one author are the basis for all of our actions.
Henry Hazlitt was a self-educated journalist, literary critic, economist and philosopher who realized the American dream in the classical manner: persistence, hard work, self-improvement (in the classical manner – education, persistence and hard work). He was a voluminous writer. He was very disturbed by the socialistic course this great country was taking after World War II and wrote Economics in One Lesson to point out the fallacies of that course and to offer a better way. He was right, Right and ignored.
This book was and is widely read and respected but was ignored or deprecated by the ruling elite. They went on their way, costing us great social and cultural deterioration and wealth and eroding our freedoms (read Rights) at an increasingly rapid rate.
I was until recently in the vanguard of that warfare, welfare mode. My new counselors have now convinced me there is a better way, and we are launched on it.
Social law, by which I mean the Blue Laws of days past, will no longer originate from the federal level. There is no place for such in political governing. I encourage the States to take a long hard look at the logic we have used, but their course is in their own hands.
One very important change will take place in the White House. We will become known as the "transparent executive." Secrecy is out. Truly "vital to national security" matters will be scrutinized critically and periodically to assure they need to be kept secret. When challenged for freedom of information access a judicial commission with true representation for all viewpoints will review and decide. State secrecy will not be used any further to cover up dumb or mistaken plans or actions nor to hide plans that are obviously adverse to the interests of the United States.
This is a revolutionary construct. It will be difficult for many to accept on its face until they are convinced by the literature, which will be available tomorrow across the country, but much more so, when they are convinced by the great improvements in all our conditions of life, socially, culturally, civilly and economically, which will be detectable within weeks.
This whole thing is an affirmation of the Constitution, albeit with a few changes. It is an affirmation of that great 18th Century Revolution, which would better be called a war of secession. It will be an affirmation of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry and George Mason can rest a little easier tonight and henceforth.
Our new course is an affirmation of the American dream.
I've been asked to announce that much of this change of course has been inspired by the works of and the memory of the leader – in the second half of last century – of the discipline upon which these moves are based, Murray N. Rothbard. Our little endeavor is dedicated to Dr. Rothbard who had the vision to structure this in the abstract, had the vision to foresee that it would come eventually, but died prematurely, thus is unable to participate in this creation of it. I am told that Dr. Rothbard would defer totally to his teacher and mentor, dean of the Austrian School of Economics, Professor Ludwig von Mises, so that point is hereby made.
Murray, where are you when we need you ?!
A call goes out herewith to all academics, intellectuals, jurists, businessmen, and others, who understand the premises of this massive proposal, and are sympathetic with it, to contact my office to accept positions to assist in this project.
One final thought: the only politically incorrect language in this (appropriately) brave new world will be: There oughtta be a law!
Mr. Secretary Rumsfeld: you are being handed a letter from me as I speak asking for your resignation, to be accepted by a nod of the head…; (pause) …thank you, and to be effective immediately. All your personal goods from your office will be at your home when you get there tonight. Your protective detail has changed from those who brought you here.
The same pertains to several of your senior staff, who have been designated and are being notified. They can probably figure out fairly well who they are.
Mr. Vice-President: you may notice as you leave this hall that your Secret Service detail has changed faces. The men assigned are equally skilled as any other of the presidential protection detail and be assured, they have your best interests at heart. Just do as they direct.
Thank you, and may God bless America. (Applause.)
