Inaugural Address of the President of the United States
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
By J. Neil Schulman and Brad Linaweaver

The candidate for president of the United States who pledges to deliver this speech upon being inaugurated will get our support, whether he or she is a Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, other party, or Independent. - J. Neil Schulman & Brad Linaweaver January 12, 2007

[After acknowledging the assembled dignitaries] . and my fellow citizens.

The inauguration of a new president of the United States can be either a time for hope or a time for despair. It can be a time for hope when your choice was between a good presidential candidate and a better one, between two candidates who told you clearly what they thought, meant what they said, and who you could believe when either of them raised their right hand and swore the oath I just took to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

It’s a time for despair when the best you could do with your ballot was to cast it for your favorite among TV reality show contestants, all of whom were packaged media personalities with no real beliefs, no principles, no ideas, no courage - and no imagination - in other words, someone who would do anything or say anything to be the last one standing at the end of the presidential contest, and whose oath of office is as empty as the words spoken to win the election.

You will not know for sure which sort of president stands before you now, until you see the job I do. But what I can do today is to tell you my vision of the job that needs to be done, so that you’ll be able to write out a report card at the end of my term and grade my performance.

My first job as president of the United States is to be president of the United States. I am not the president of France, or Iraq, or Venezuela, or Somalia, or Israel, or — for that matter - the moon or Mars. I was elected by the American people, who pay my salary with their taxes, and I consider that I work for the people who hired me and pay me. During the next four years I won’t be working for anyone else.

I know there are people who want the president of the United States to act on behalf of the good of all mankind, but that is the job description of the Savior, not of the president of the United States. I’m not here to answer prayers for world peace. I’m not a good enough man to do that. I’m here to be the chief executive officer of the world’s oldest, most prosperous, and most successful continuously operating constitutional republic. That’s probably too big a job for any one man as it is. But I’ve agreed to take that job no matter how big it is and I’ll do it to the best of my ability.

Next. The oath I took was to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” I have news for you. I meant what I said when I took that oath. When there is a power granted to the president by the Constitution, I intend to use that power on behalf of the interests of the American people and I will not be shy about wielding that power like a fiery sword. When the Constitution does not grant me a power but reserves such power to the Congress, or to the courts, or to the states, or to the people themselves, then I am not going to use the executive powers of my administration to go beyond what the Constitution allows.

In the two hundred twenty two years since the Constitution of the United States of America was ratified, the executive branch of the federal government has grown into a leviathan bureaucracy unimaginable to the constitution’s framers. We have a Department of Transportation that does not operate a single bus line, train, or airline. We have a Department of Education that does not operate a single school. The executive branch of the United States government has become precisely what the Declaration of Independence said was the cause for the American Revolution: our modern federal government has “erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.”

Don’t get me wrong. Most of the people who work in these federal offices are well-meaning, honest, and hard-working, trying to do the best they can to solve terrible problems. It’s not that these departments are run by bad people. They’re run by good people just like you. The problem is that bureaucracy by its nature punishes people with imagination who take risks and rewards people who cover their rear ends and play it safe. It’s only in a consumer marketplace where you get to comparison shop for price, innovation, and quality where imagination and risk is rewarded. It’s only in an office run by people who understand that their jobs depend on delivering a product that you’re willing to pay for where avoiding risks leads to a pink slip.

I can’t solve the problem of bureaucracy from the Oval Office. If I tried to the people whose jobs I threaten would unite to stop me any way they could. But at least I can tell you the truth. The system by which your hard-earned money is taken away from you to be spent by the government doing things that a lot of you don’t even want done - however you label it - is not in the interest of the American people. You can spend your money better than I, and the well-meaning people who work in my administration, can. During my time in office I will be doing the best I can to use my veto power to restrain spending and if I can’t reduce the size of government at least I can try to slow down its growth. If you want more than that done, you’ll have to elect a Congress that’s more interested in working for the American people as a whole than bringing home pork to their own states and districts. Good luck with that. That’s your job, not mine.

Here’s what I can do as your president.

I can, as president, issue orders to the various departments in the executive branch, suspending regulations that I see as harmful to the national security and domestic well-being.

I consider the dependency of the United States on foreign sources of oil to be a threat to our national security. The countries we have been importing oil from are largely populated by people who have made it clear that they hate America. We import their oil because we don’t produce and refine enough domestically - or produce alternative energy - sufficient to fuel our economy.

Later today I will sign a series of presidential executive orders designed to reduce the regulatory costs of producing domestic energy, and I will ask the Congress to make domestic energy production of oil and alternatives of every sort cheaper and reduce as much as practical our domestic use of imported foreign oil. We not only need to be pulling more oil out of domestic lands but we need to be increasing our domestic capacity to refine it. We need every possible source of alternative energy, from bio-diesel to wind to solar to geothermal to nuclear to orbiting solar power collectors. However much this costs, it will be cheap compared to the trillions of dollars the American taxpayer has been spending to keep foreign oil flowing into our country.

There will be objections that these directives are being made without consideration of global warming. That’s not true. One of these directives will be to order that all federal buildings install roofs with reflective surfaces to absorb less of the sun’s energy and thus counteract any possible temperature increases that might be caused by greenhouse gasses. I will encourage the Congress to pass tax incentives for private industry and homes to do likewise.

Regarding tax policy. Both spending and taxes are the domain of Congress. I’d love to see you taxed less and for the federal government to spend less. Talk to your Congressman about it. I can write a budget but only Congress can pass it, and the truth is that Congress will tax and spend as much or more as you let them get away with. Cutting taxes and spending isn’t my job. It’s yours.

Regarding education. I don’t see anything in the constitution that charges the president with the education of your children.

I need to tell you how I see my job as commander in chief of the armed forces. I intend to use the armed forces of the United States to defend the United States, the people of the United States, and the property of the people of the United States. I know that in an age when foreigners own property and business interests within the United States, and citizens of the United States own property and business interests in foreign lands and multi-national businesses, this can sometimes be hard to untangle. But let me tell you the part of my job as Commander in Chief that is crystal clear to me.

I’m not going to send American soldiers, sailors, or Marines to fight under any flag except the flag of the United States.

I will ask the Congress of the United States to begin sunsetting outdated treaties obligating the United States taxpayer to pay for the protection of any country in which we do not have an obvious and vital national interest, or for which the honor of the American people does not depend on sustaining promises we have taken on as moral obligations. But where we determine that we are merely saving the taxpayers of another country from taking on the financial obligation of paying for their own national defense, a defense that they are capable of sustaining on their own, I will ask the Congress to notify these countries that we will be redeploying our troops where our national interest is better served.

I am not going to send troops into foreign lands without a Declaration of War passed by the Congress of the United States, as required by the Constitution of the United States in Article I, Section 8. That doesn’t mean I won’t use the military power of the United States to defend our people, our lands, our transportation, or our allies, when attacked. But let everyone - whether a hostile government, or a drug cartel, or a terrorist cell, or an evil madman — understand that I mean this precisely and exactly.

Occupation should not be confused with retaliation. Attack our lands, our people, our transportation, or the allies we are pledged to defend by treaty, and our response will be your destruction, the destruction of those who let you hide among them, the destruction of your cities, your holy places, your antiquities, and your children. The only power I have as president of the United States to defend the United States is to make the cost of attacking us so unthinkable - the retaliation we will unleash upon you so barbaric - that you will leave us in peace. One of my predecessors in office ordered the use of atomic bombs to destroy two cities. We have weapons that make those city-killer bombs look like toys by comparison. The United States of America will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction to annihiliate those who attack us any more than Julius Caesar or Genghis Khan would have. Never mistake our pursuit of happiness for weakness or lack of resolve. Attack my country or our treaty partners while I am commander in chief of the armed forces of the United States and I will hunt you down and kill you and everyone you know. Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone.

I will use our national guard to assist our border patrols to secure the national borders of our country, not to keep out those who want an honest day’s work for an honest dollar, but to keep out terrorists and criminals. I will honor and enforce the terms of the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo by which Mexico and the United States resolved our territorial disputes and afforded all residents of these territories a period of one year to decide whether they wanted to be citizens of Mexico or citizens of the United States. That was such a good idea, I think it’s time to do it again. I will propose to Congress a one-year period when Mexican nationals working in the United States can decide whether they wish to be citizens of Mexico or citizens of the United States. If they choose Mexican citizenship, they must leave, and they will not be allowed back in except for short periods as tourists. If they want the benefits of American citizenship and prosperity, they will have to abandon their Mexican citizenship and pledge their loyalty solely to the United States. After that one year, any Mexican national who receives any taxpayer-funded benefit - or commits any crime - within the United States, will have an invoice sent in his or her name to the government of Mexico for the cost to American citizens for that benefit, or reparation for that crime, and if the government of Mexico does not pay that invoice, we will levy taxes on American loans to, investment in, and American tourism to Mexico until those bills are paid.

Domestic security is a thorny issue. We face enemies whose method of attack - as we saw on September 11, 2001 - is to cloak themselves and hide among us, using our own domestic resources to attack us. The 9/11 attacks were devastating enough, but would be nothing compared to a terrorist attack using weapons of mass destruction. You have already heard me warn all potential enemies of the dire consequences should we be attacked again. But this leaves open the question of how much inconvenience and loss of privacy the American people should bear in a proactive attempt to prevent another such attack.

My answer is: I do not think the people of the United States need to sacrifice their liberty and privacy in defense of their liberty and privacy.

I am today ordering the Transportation Security Administration to cease the practice of disarming the American people of their weapons when they board a bus, train, or airliner under jurisdiction of the federal government. Let every terrorist understand that if they attempt to take over a jetliner again, they will not be facing the unarmed passengers who defended United Flight 93. They will be facing passengers who will be carrying the personal arms they are guaranteed by the Second Amendment to bear. You may call this the Archie Bunker option. I call it the common sense legacy of the geniuses who founded our country. You, the people of the United States - as you proved on Flight 93 - are the first line of defense against terrorist attacks.

I intend to enforce the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth amendments to the Constitution of the United States. If we need to violate your privacy, we will do what the Constitution requires and prove to a judge that we have probable cause that a crime has been or will be committed.

I am suspending any unconstitutional provisions in the Patriot Act, and am closing down Gitmo. The prisoners there will be charged with a crime and tried, or they will be sent back to where we captured them . and if they succeed in attacking us again, they now know with certainty the terrible consequences that will follow.

Finally, the president of the United States is granted the power by Article I, Section 2 of the constitution “to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offences against the United States.” I intend to use that power during my four years in office to grant pardons and amnesty to the people of the United States when they engage in acts that I consider are their rights preserved under the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. I intend to interpret these constitutional protections liberally. While I am president no American will be fined or jailed by the federal government for exercising their constitutionally protected right to free speech - even if that free speech is a prayer spoken on public property — to keep and bear arms, to choose the medicinal substance or health supplement of their choice, to use their property as they see fit, or to engage in acts between consenting adults — so long as they’re not disturbing their neighbors. When police arrest these people, when federal prosecutors prosecute them, when federal judges send these cases to juries - I am putting them all on notice that when, in the opinion of this president, their behavior is constitutionally protected, I will uphold my oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States - against them.

You may have figured out from what I just said that there isn’t going to be much of a war on drugs while I am president. The way I see it, there will be plenty of other wars that we need to win more urgently, such as the war against those who attacked our country on September 11, 2001. My duty is to enforce the law, and the highest law I’m bound to enforce is the Constitution, which tests all other laws of our land. The Supreme Court of the United States - in its very first decision in 1803 - decided that they alone would decide what was constitutional and what wasn’t. Well, that power wasn’t granted to the Supreme Court in the Constitution but was a power grab, and I’ve concluded that the Constitution is right and the Supreme Court was wrong. All three branches of government have the obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, not just the courts. If you have elected Congressional representatives and senators who think I’m wrong about this, they can impeach me. Until then, I’m going to read the clear language in which it’s written and do what the Constitution tells me to do and only what it tells me to do.

That’s how I see my job and I’ll do it that way until you, the American people, the term limits on me set by the Constitution, or God Almighty, tells me I’m done.

God bless you and God bless the United States of America.

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J. Neil Schulman is an award-winning libertarian novelist and journalist whose books have been praised by conservatives including Milton Friedman, Charlton Heston, Dennis Prager, and Walter E. Williams. He’s written for magazines including National Review, Reader’s Digest, and Reason, and was a screenwriter best known for his Twilight Zone episode where a time-travelling future historian interrupts the JFK assassination. Most recently he produced, wrote, and directed his first feature film, Lady Magdalene’s starring Star Trek’s Nichelle Nichols, an action comedy in which a legal Nevada brothel is the setting for intrique between federal agents and an Al Qaeda sleeper cell.

Brad Linaweaver is a Nebula Award finalist for the novella version and Prometheus Award winner for the novel Moon of Ice. His other novels include Sliders and The Land Beyond Summer. In addition to other bestselling books he’s written in collaboration with other authors, he’s sold over eighty short stories, and three hundred articles, as well as various scripts and original stories that have been produced as audio dramas and low budget movies. Linaweaver is also now publishing the new pop culture magazine Mondo Cult. The late President Ronald Reagan praised an early article he wrote making the case for capitalism against socialism. Reagan summed up his commentary on Brad with a line, “How right he is!” The radio broadcast is included in the Reagan CD set, In His Own Voice, and in the book, Stories in His Own Hand: The Everyday Wisdom of Ronald Reagan.

Copyright © 2007 by J. Neil Schulman and Brad Linaweaver. All rights reserved.