[steps to lectern] [taps microphone]
Good evening, America. I want to tell you about a broken promise and how we can make it right.
In America, we choose to invest certain citizens with our collective power. In exchange for our votes and our tax dollars, our leaders promise America three things:
Integrity. Security. Prosperity.
The American promise has been broken.
We do not trust our leaders, for we see no integrity.
We live in fear, for we have no security.
We are a nation in debt, for we have no prosperity.
We can deliver on the American promise. We have the means. We have the vision. We are America! It is time we used our American strengths to fulfill the American promise:
Innovation. Determination. Cooperation.
Today, I speak to you of integrity and how to restore it.
Integrity is telling the truth.
Integrity is accepting responsibility for mistakes, and being accountable for correcting them.
Integrity is meeting commitments.
Integrity is consistently ethical behavior.
Integrity is character.
Few of us trust our political leaders. "Politician" is one of the worst names you can call someone. Politicians are a favorite target for comedy.
Think about that.
We mock the very people to whom we have entrusted our power and our money and our health and our future.
What mad joke of a world is this?
Would you laugh at the incompetence of your surgeon? Would you roll your eyes and shrug at how your bank steals from you?
Wake up!
Integrity is in crisis!
We do not trust our leaders because our leaders have not shown integrity. This is because the American political system punishes integrity.
The American political system rejects those who will not bow down to moneyed interests.
The American political system tears down those who have the moral fiber to admit mistakes and make corrections.
The American political system rewards negative campaigns built of lies and half-truths, campaigns so corrupted by compromised ethics that, like vampires, they cannot stand the light of day and must be buried as quickly as possible after election day.
Integrity is at the core of restoring our democracy. Integrity is critical to restoring our trust in our leaders. Integrity is absolutely essential to our influence on leaders around the world.
We can restore integrity by applying innovation, determination, and cooperation to our systems of accountability.
Innovation is the process of imagining a new way to do something and then making that dream a reality.
Imagine that a minority party could launch a Congressional investigation or appoint a special prosecutor.
Imagine that our leaders had to publicly answer questions from citizens and the press and their fellow leaders, not just the ones they choose. Really answer them, and be held to account for avoiding them or lying.
Imagine that campaigns were only financed with public money.
Imagine that libel and slander laws were strengthened, not weakened, when applied to political campaigns.
If we can imagine these things, we can make them real. Americans are an innovative people. There are thousands of brilliant ideas ready to tap into, if we would only commit to solving the problem of integrity.
It's time for a new Constitutional Amendment. The Open Government and Integrity Amendment.
Senators, members of Congress, Governors, members of the state Assemblies, hear our call:
We want to trust you.
Give us a reason.
Give us an Integrity Amendment that truly cleans out the corruption that has accumulated in the dark corners of our mighty government.
Call for our ideas. Gather them by mail, by telephone, by email. Use American innovation to develop the solutions we need to restore integrity to our nation's leadership.
Remember always that it will take more than just innovation to restore integrity to our nation. It will take determination.
While innovation harnesses our dreams, determination harnesses our sweat.
Americans are a determined people. We will stick to our guns, we will fight to the end, we will go every inch that we must to reach our goals. We can count on determined Americans to march at our sides until integrity is restored. Let us gather our dreams, forge them into a vision, and do the work together to make them reality.
Determination carries us to victory after long-fought victory in the civil rights movement, in the long war against totalitarianism, in the fight against disease, and in the year-in and year-out struggle to find our way through troubles not only of our own making but those that have plagued mankind since we first walked this earth.
When the cause is just, the people are tireless. Take up a just cause, and we will need no spin, no public relations campaign, no advertisement, no threats or rewards to keep us motivated. The dream of a just cause calls forth the determination we all have within us.
But innovation and determination are still not enough to restore integrity. We will need that great American strength, cooperation.
Determination is a solitary virtue. Cooperation is the virtue that unites us all.
United we stand.
America was built by the cooperative effort of people from all over this world. We are a people who know how to combine our strengths, to use our diverse resources, to join together in common cause. Division of America weakens America. We all want integrity from our leaders.
In the fight for integity, you are truly either with us or against us. Selfless or self-serving. Honest or dishonest.
When we choose a goal that is important to us all, such as integrity, all are united. Red or blue, black or white, rich or poor, there are values that we all share. In fighting for them, we find friends everywhere. Integrity requires no excuses, no sales pitch. Its value is indisputable. When we take a stand for integrity, all America stands with us.
We will restore the American promise of integrity.
Thank you and good night.