On the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech, it seems appropriate to ask to what extent that dream is coming true.
For example, the Democratic nominee for Vice President is a black woman… but she was chosen because she’s black. That is, her qualifications depended first on her sex, second on the color of her skin, and only third on the content of her character.
For example, we have the owners of businesses being openly threatened if they don’t meet race-based hiring and spending quotas, and contribute a percentage of their net sales to black non-profits; and the owners of homes being threatened if they don’t surrender those homes as ‘reparations’ to blacks.
For example, we have the developers of vaccines declaring their intent to make them available first to blacks, and then to everyone else.
And so on.
One wonders what Dr. King would make of these developments. He surely understood that preference should not be confused with progress, a lesson that seems to have been lost on many of those who claim to be his followers.
Anyway, in the spirit of the occasion, and with all possible humility, I’ve updated the original speech, to make it both more inclusive and more local, to focus more on what unites us than on what divides us, and to reflect changes that have occurred in the intervening half-century, and the most recent half-year.
Twelve score and four years ago, several great Americans signed the Declaration of Independence.
This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of colonists who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice.
It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their exploitation.
But 244 years later, the American still is not free.
244 years later, the life of the American is still sadly crippled by the manacles of taxation and the chains of regulation.
244 years later, the American lives on a lonely and eroding island of material prosperity in the midst of a vast ocean of laws placing limits on his personal conduct, and placing claims on his productive capacity.
244 years later, the American has traded one set of chains for another – but because he gets, every few years, to lay a hand on these chains, he thinks himself free.
When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.
This note was a promise that all men would be guaranteed the ‘unalienable Rights’ of ‘Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’.
It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note, insofar as her citizens are concerned.
Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the American people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds’.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of liberty is bankrupt.
We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation.
And so, we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand, not coercive control over the persons or property of others, but the liberty to pursue happiness as we define it, to take actions guided by our own values, and to accept both the risks of choosing unwisely, and the benefits of perspicacity, perseverance, and providence.
We would also remind America of the fierce urgency of Now.
This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.
Now is the time to make real the promises of freedom.
Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valleys of ‘social justice’ to the sunlit paths of actual justice and personal responsibility.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of this moment.
This sweltering summer of legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality – not equality of outcome, or equality of income, but equality of opportunity, of equality before a law that does not discriminate between rich and poor, between black and white, between man and woman, between ethnic groups or protected classes, or most importantly, between those who have learned to move the levers of government to further their own ends through the threat of force, and those who seek only to live peacefully and by their own honest efforts rather than at the expense of others.
Two thousand twenty is not an end, but a beginning.
And those who hope that Americans needed to blow off steam and will now slide back into their usual stupor of contentment will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until every American is granted his rights as a citizen, which includes being free of the chains now placed upon him by a perverse and pervasive system of entitlements.
The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of liberty emerges.
Even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the dream of America’s founders.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: That the just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed, and that no man can consent for another.
I have a dream that our children will one day live in a land where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, or the contingencies of their chromosomes, or by age, or association, or ancestry, or anything other than the content of their character; by their willingness to respect the freedom of each person to pursue happiness in his own way, in order to keep alive that same freedom for themselves.
But in my dream, I do not pause like Moses, pointing the way to the promised land, while not entering it myself. My dream is of liberty, not in some distant future, but in my lifetime.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that here in New Hampshire, we can start the bell of liberty ringing again, from every town and every city, speeding up the day when each of New Hampshire’s citizens — man and woman, adult and child, black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, gay and straight, rich and poor, liberal and conservative, worshipper and atheist — will understand that freedom delayed is freedom denied, that the pursuit of happiness is itself the greatest source of happiness, and that we must shake off the chains of mutual force, before we can forge the far stronger bonds of mutual respect.
