Speaking Truth to Power

Below is a speech I delivered at a “Freedom Rally” on July 4, 2025, in Festus, Missouri. I opened with a quote from the Declaration of Independence, which highlights our nation’s founding ideals. Although these ideals never fully materialized, we’ve made progress. Recently, however, we’ve regressed. This speech points out where we, as a nation, are drifting back into a dark past—a past that could destroy us unless we stand together and fight for our nation’s highest ideals of liberty and freedom for all.

You may find this speech on YouTube at https://youtu.be/8tFhzXPclfw

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

We all recognize those words; they’re part of the Declaration of Independence. Those words were forged in fire, declared at a moment of grave danger by a group of revolutionaries who knew full well they could be hanged for treason while their families suffered in poverty. Yet they dared to imagine something bold and new: a government rooted in liberty, where rights were not handed down by kings but endowed by our Creator and derived from our shared humanity.

Even as those words were scribed on parchment, the men who wrote them had slaves. Women were not part of their inclusive government. Nor was the Native American. Even so, those words still meant something. They were a promise given to a new nation, a promise that would take centuries to fulfill. No, we aren’t there yet, but we have had some progress - and some setbacks - in America’s long journey to freedom and liberty for all.

We now find ourselves in yet another setback. The struggle for civil rights, which is as old as the Declaration of Independence, is now going backward. And cruelty fills the void in its wake. Raw, unfiltered cruelty.

It’s a cruelty that kidnaps brown-skinned people off our streets and sends them to concentration camps without due process.

It’s a cruelty that sees unhoused people sent away to jail rather than being helped.

It’s a cruelty that prays in public on Sundays, and preaches from the book of malice and corruption on every other day.

It’s a cruelty that denies women’s reproductive freedom, rather than trusting them to make their own health decisions.

It’s a cruelty that rigs our election system to favor a privileged few rather than the will of the many.

It’s a cruelty that cuts healthcare and education from the masses to provide more wealth for the filthy rich.

It’s a cruelty that bathes itself in all the trappings of corruption while taking our tax dollars to fund golf trips to Florida, run military parades through the streets of Washington, DC, and accepts a jumbo jet from a country that sponsors jihadist terrorists who kill our soldiers.

It’s a cruelty that looks the other way while selling bombs to a country that swims in the blood of genocide.

And with all this cruelty, what are our politicians doing? With a few notable exceptions, the answer is simple. Nothing. They do nothing but count their donor dollars while the rest of the country rots.

Folks, we look to our Constitution to protect us, but the Constitution is only a piece of paper. It means nothing if we aren’t committed to living by its rules and fighting for its survival. Countless individuals have fought and died, not so much for the Constitution, but for our collective right to rise up and be counted. Our collective right to demand better from our elected officials. Our collective right to live in peace and security.

These rights have been ripped away from us. We are no longer secure on our streets. We are no longer secure in our health. We are no longer secure in the knowledge that our government will not send U.S. Marines onto our streets to control us.

By the works of a nefarious cabal, we have been divided. Our corporate-owned media has convinced us that the problem isn’t the cabal that’s running our government; rather, the problem is with each other. They have us turn on each other rather than pointing at the real threat to our liberties and freedoms - the real threat of the oligarchy that corruptly steals our labor and our money so they can quench their thirst for power, money, and sex while the rest of us have to fight for the scraps that fall off the table. This cabal has turned our own terms of liberty and freedom against us, openly making racial slurs while disparaging the idea of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

It’s time we stand up and recognize who’s really driving us off the cliff. It isn’t immigrants. It isn’t the unhoused. It isn’t the folks dependent on Medicaid. It isn’t the “others.” It is the cabal that has seized the reins of our government and is bleeding us dry while they buy yet another yacht.

It’s time to wake up, organize, and demand better. Yes, the days ahead will be dark. We know that. There will be challenges. Battles will be fought and lost. But if we keep our eye on the promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for all, we will prevail.