I was doing a little reading and began wondering what his State of the Union speech would sound like if he came into office today, considering what he said in the past:
"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
(Exemplary: War on "terror" and all it's derived unonstitutional laws and the Executive's ongoing Constitutional abridgements)
"A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive will not long be safe companions to liberty"
(After Bush and Obama, the Executive has certainly attributed to itself a lot of power, and the US has a quite large standing military force that so far has done everything the Executive has asked of it)
"to keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics — that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe"
(One thing we consistently seem unable to cut and are chastised for questioning is our "robust" standing military. In the mean time the word "militia" has been demonized, and anyone related with it is probably on a terror watch list)
"I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations"
(The story of the American 20th Century, carrying on into the 21st. Most notable with gun control. Hell, the entire BOR has been steadily chipped, chipped, chipped away between the War on drugs and the War on Terror)
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few."
(Our Government has been in non-stop wars for how many years now?)
"A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives."
(All Government misdeeds seem to be kept secret nowadays as a matter of "National Security". Whistleblowers exposing government wrong doing are vigorously harassed and prosecuted. Many news outlets avoid hard scrutiny and are happy to repeat pre approved Government statements. The Public School systems breed ignorance and train kids to not question authority figures, gets them accustomed to "zero tolerance" policies)
"Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace."
(2/3's of the way there. Standing army:check; enslaved press: submissive and non confrontational; disarmed populance: not entirely, still hanging in there!)
Maybe his Address would be a one liner: "America, U be *expletive deleted*."
