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Your Favourite Political / Philosophical Speech

I couldn't fit the whole thing in the title because of the faggoty character limit, but basically I thought it'd be fun to accommodate a place where people can showcase their favorite speeches from a political or intellectual figure and then we could review and debate the qualities of other people's selections. As a team!

Speeches need to be at least vaguely in the realm of philosophy or politics, I don't really think there's much of a point talking about someone's emmy acceptance speech but you can if you really want. Also try and include a quick bio of the individual you're linking to.

I'll start the ball rolling, this is one of my favorite criticisms on Christianity from Sam Harris, he's done a number of recorded debates with religious figures and I find him much more viewable / interesting than Hitchens or Dawkins.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HthQ6a7FZeA

At 4/26/13 10:45 AM, Earfetish wrote: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl8oKO7BAuU

NZ MP's gay marriage speech

doing the viral rounds atm, it's pretty special tho

My girlfriend showed my that a couple of days ago, I think the outcome of that debate was that they passed the bill and legalised gay marriage. There was a resounding round of applause and then the house burst into song. I thought it was pretty sweet. Weird but I can never see that sort of behaviour going down in the UK political process, seems to be more orientated around point scoring and squabbling.

At 4/26/13 11:36 AM, Dawnslayer wrote: Dr. King's "I Have A Dream" speech is pretty high up there.

Video

This is a pretty classic one, the way he speaks still gives me goosebumps. Guess you could say this is one of the more influential speeches because it actually swayed public opinion and continues to be a huge influence on many people.

The The âEUoeEvil EmpireâEU by Reagan.

At 4/26/13 09:50 PM, Angry-Hatter wrote: "You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don't hate. Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural."

Crying.

At 4/26/13 09:52 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: The The âEUoeEvil EmpireâEU by Reagan.

Lol you suck at things

At 4/26/13 11:34 PM, Fim wrote:

At 4/26/13 09:52 PM, Tony-DarkGrave wrote: The The Ãf¢EUoeEvil EmpireÃf¢EU by Reagan.

Lol you suck at things

I'm on my phone using copy and past because I'm to lazy and warm to get out of my bed because its still cold here.

At 5/11/13 11:23 PM, Devsonx wrote:

At 5/11/13 11:17 AM, Ericho wrote:

At 5/11/13 08:36 AM, Devsonx wrote: The Declaration of Independence is excellent (it's not really Jefferson's personal speech, but a common declaration by America).

I don't think that counts because when was it ever a speech? If it was, then I would like to know when it was given.

The Declaration was read aloud in multiple counties in every state. Of course, in each instance the speaker was a different person. I don't know the particular names of each appointed official, though in 1877 the historian Charles Hart published an essay detailing the life of Colonel John Nixon, who was appointed to read the Declaration publicly in its birthplace of Philadelphia. By an order of Congress he did so on Monday, July 8, at 12:00 p.m.

Attributing the Declaration, as a speech, to a particular person is difficult if not impossible; but that's because of the nature of the speech. The Declaration was intended to be a collective proclamation (e.g., "We hold these truths...") by the people of America, not the statement of a single person.

I don't know how I feel about the declaration of independence, I used to think it was a wholly good thing, but then if you look deeper at the history; what it proceeded, public opinion at the time, and who actually benefited from it, it's made me come to the realization that people these days hold it almost as a holy gospel just because that's what the current government teaches them. Although the concept of life liberty and the pursuit of happiness is a very noble idea, what the constitution actually represented was life liberty, the pursuit of happiness and property. It gets a brief mention in this very good speech / lecture "Three Holy Wars".

At 5/13/13 07:27 PM, Devsonx wrote: Oops! I mean "Fim." It looked like an "n" on my screen.

No worrys.

I think you may have Howard Zinn a little misunderstood, I don't think he implied in his speech (you should watch it if you haven't) that the founding fathers were bad or corrupt in anyway. He's just saying that most people these days have a very narrow view on history and that we almost view the 3 big wars; civil. Revolutionary and ww2 as 'holy' and we never criticise them, scrutinise them negatively, or even consider for a moment that the outcomes could have been achieved differently.

To be honest I think he's right, we are only ever taught one side of these wars. I don't want to churn out everything he said to you, but I think you should look at the facts and data of what happened under the governments that passed the deceleration of independence rather than the speeches. essentially, all public addresses are are PR / propaganda stunts, and will be hugely biased in favour of the government. Ronald Reagan said some pretty noble stuff, but behind closed doors he did some downright illegal stuff, sold weapons to terrorists, and sky rocketed the deficit. Actions should speak louder than words in my opinion.

Back on point, people don't ever talk about how there were huge mutinies during the revolutionary war, and that after the war was over the Native American were MUCH worse off than before, because at least the English respected their rights to have land. Also, people never mention that western Massachusetts actually overruled the English oppressors in 1775 without firing a shot, plus I can think of a couple of nation states that gained independence from England peacefully, Ghana, Canada, India, Australia to name a few.

Zinn is just pointing out that you only need brave inspiring words in a constitution to justify the acts of war and slaughter that proceeded them, the founding fathers who orchestrated the war were very rich beforehand, and they gained a lot from the war in every respect. They could afford to pay the bail money to opt their children out of service. All Zinns saying is that these wars had 2 stories. And you should appreciate that. I don't think he ever made any comments about the free market or anything like that since he's a historian / philosopher not a political commentator.

At 5/14/13 07:44 PM, Devsonx wrote: Fim,

Yes, I understand the general theme Zinn presents in his lecture; however, I was responding to what seemed to be your more particular interest in the supposed discrepancy between the language of the Declaration of Independence and the language of the U.S. Constitution, specifically with respect to the word "property." If I focused on the wrong angle, my apologies.

Fair enough! I must admit regardless of the pretext, the actual wording of the deceleration is pretty faultless.

At 4/28/13 05:45 PM, LemonCrush wrote: i can't think of many off the top of my head other than Eisenhower's farewell address

I love Eisenhower's Farewell Adress. It still holds a lot of relevance in our modern world.

Also, I'm a big fan of Churchill's "We Will FIght on the Beaches" and "Finest Hour" speeches. Thoughts on those?

I'm from the 1980's so, this. John Lithgow was teh man.