Crossposted from SmokeyMonkey.org.
The one award I ever won in my life that came with a trophy was the "Voice of Democracy" speech I wrote in my advanced English class in high school. The year was 1990. I won first prize for the region.
The contest was sponsored by a couple of local VFW and Ladies Auxillary chapters. We were required to record our speech, which we did at the local TV station. That alone was pretty fun as I had never recorded anything professionally before. But more exciting was delivering my speech live to a couple of hundred veterans at the awards banquet. That was my first real public speaking engagement.
The text of the speech is below.
Between the years 1775 and 1783, a war was fought in the American colonies that cost more than thirty thousand American lives. That war was caused by the unbending rules of a man that had never even been to the colonies. The King of England enforced his laws with an iron hand and refused to change when the colonists brought the problems to his attention peacefully. Instead of giving any power to the people he ruled, the King brought on the Revolutionary War which had to be fought to demonstrate the determination of the men and women of the young United States.
The colonists left the Revolutionary War impoverished and unorganized and with many loved ones dead. Yet they left with their right to decide for themselves; they left with their freedom, and that freedom was more than ample compensation for the lives of thirty thousand brave men and women. When I envision such a fierce battle as must have been fought by the desperate colonists, I see before me the need to preserve the wonders that they acquired -- not for themselves, but for the millions to come after them.
The idea of freedom is represented as the "inalienable rights" that all humans possess. To establish the freedom that everybody longs for and should have, we must protect the rights of everyone in the society. Many forms of govermment have been created to do this, such as communism, socialism, and monarchy. The one that has proven most effective is democracy.
A democracy is a form of government where all citizens are allowed to take part. Every member has a vote, and those votes are important to the continuation of the government. In a democratic society most laws and decisions are made when a majority of the citizens vote one way or the other. This allows them the freedom of choice and protects their other rights because the decisions can be made to favor their view.
A democracy is a form of government where all the members decide how many and what type of freedoms exist. Obviously the citizens are not going to enslave themselves. Restrictions placed on the citizens of a democracy are for the protection of the rights of others.
A democracy is, then, the vanguard of freedom. It allows more choice than any other form of government, and it protects that choice for future generations. Since its beginning in the time of the ancient Greeks, democracy has undergone extensive improvement. Recently it has become obvious that a democracy can outlast other forms of government, most noticeably communism.
The right to speak freely, the right to practice what religion is preferred, the right to assemble with others -- these are rights all humans should possess. These are the rights guaranteed by the Bill of Rights, the true vanguard of our freedom.
To uphold these freedoms is the point of our system of government. However, because our nation is so large, swelled by immigrants seeking the freedoms of America, we must elect those people that will protect for us the freedoms we have given so much to win. This system of representation does not detract from the purpose of our democacy -- it may enhance it, since we may spend our time on other pursuits.
Unlike our ancestors who had no say in who ruled them, we can vote for one person over another in an election. Freedom of choice is the most exercised freedom in our country. This feedom should be the most important in our society, for without it we would have no say whatsoever in our government, and the democracy would fade. To avoid that catastrophe, we must know our rights, we must use them, and we must assure that future generations will know and use them as well.
Our nation -- more so than any other nation in the world -- stands for what is fair, just, and free. Our nation exemplifies the standards all men look for in a leader. That is why we are the vanguard of world freedom and peace. That is why we support nations trying to rid themselves of the strangling hold of dictators. Our efforts as a nation of free-will have recently sent ripples of change throughout the world just as the blood of thousands of Americans sent ripples through the waters around Fort Henry as the flag waved in the air amidst the bursting of British bombs.
And so our democacy forges through the times, overcoming oppression and slavery, throwing aside the sad times of tyrannically ruled nations, and leaving nothing but the freedoms established through two hundred years and more of experience with democracy.
Again, this was written by a high school kid nearly 16 years ago.