A Modern Paraphrase

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After a request to post this video (but before I actually watched it), I was inspired to update Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have A Dream" speech to suit modern conditions. Many parts remain as-is.

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Two score and five years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the "I Have A Dream" speech in our nation's capitol. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Hyphenated-Americans who had been poisoned by the fruit of white liberal guilt. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But forty-five years later, these Hyphenated-Americans are still not free. Forty-five years later, the life of the Hyphenated-American is still sadly crippled by the manacles of affirmative action and the chains of reverse racism. Forty-five years later, the Hyphenated-American lives behind a facade of material prosperity, yet drowns in a vast ocean of spiritual poverty. Forty-five years later, the Hyphenated-American is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in this great land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation's capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and 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, regardless of color, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that the Democratic Party has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens-of-hyphen are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, the Democratic Party has given the Hyphenated-American people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds." But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice. We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to be lulled into laziness by the drone of demagoguery. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of the welfare state to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of socialism to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. These ongoing seasons of the Hyphenated-American's perpetual discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Two thousand and eight is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Hyphenated-American needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the Democratic Party continues to enslave the Hyphenated-American on its socialist plantation. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Hyphenated-American understands that the many rights he has been granted come with responsibilities. The hammer of truth will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. Let us not advance our cause through race-baiting and finger-pointing. Let us not swear allegiance to false hopes and false religions. Let us not seek to demand those reparations to which we have no birthright and which no one now living owes.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our legitimate complaints to snowball into illegitimate greed. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The personality cults of irreverent "reverends" which have engulfed the Hyphenated-American community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, "When will you be satisfied?" We can never be satisfied as long as the Hyphenated-American believes the demagoguery of the Democrats. We can never be satisfied as long as every single one of our achievements are held suspect due to the spectre of affirmative action. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Hyphenated-American's basic mobility is from a physical ghetto to a welfare ghetto. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are murdered in the womb by abortion clinics that target the poor. We can never be satisfied as long as our community is robbed of its dignity by the voices of violent rappers and illiterate gangstas. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Hyphenated-American in Florida is too ignorant to properly use a ballot box and a Hyphenated-American in New York mindlessly votes in lockstep with vapid drug-addled celebrities. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the lies of the left which enslave your mind. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. But remember that America is a nation of laws, and do not claim that your suffering is unjust if you have broken those laws. Some of you have come to this shining city by illegal ways, by land, sea, or air. You have no rights as citizens here until you enter it by the straight and narrow, yet even in that situation you are still safer in this city on a hill than you would be in the same situation virtually anywhere else on earth.

Go back to California, go back to Chicago, go back to Massachusetts, go back to New York, go back to the slums and ghettos surrounding our nation's capitol, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day the sons of blue states and the sons of red states will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Massachusetts, a state suffering under excessive taxation, sweltering in the reek of lesser Kennedys, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that our children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, in the House of Representatives, with its closet racists, with its Speaker weaving words to ensnare all Americans; one day right there in Congress, our elected officials can ignore party affiliation to do what is good, what is right, what is just for our great land.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to blue states with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to silence the yammering yahoos of the media-infotainment-complex so that we may all sing the beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the great spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"