On January 12th President Obama gave his final State of the Union address. During his speech, President Obama said, “That's why I stand here confident that the State of our Union is strong.” Well Mr. President, you are wrong. You are very wrong. Our nation is no longer strong, powerful, or great. We are weak; we have fallen. The empire the world once knew has began to crumble.

"I told you earlier all the talk of America's economic decline is political hot air. Well, so is all the rhetoric you hear about our enemies getting stronger and America getting weaker. The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It's not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined. Our troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world. No nation dares to attack us or our allies because they know that's the path to ruin. Surveys show our standing around the world is higher than when I was elected to this office, and when it comes to every important international issue, people of the world do not look to Beijing or Moscow to lead — they call us."

We are not a strong nation when Iran can have a gross overreaction and detain United States Navy sailors when their boat accidentally drifted into its waters. We are not the strong nation you think of if Iran can detain our sailors without fear. We are not a strong nation when you boast about Iranian nuclear programs but fail to acknowledge the impending crisis. “Even he must now realize that his diplomacy has not moderated Iran—it has emboldened it,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark, said in a statement last Tuesday. We are not a strong nation when you blow off the impending threat of ISIS ("But as we focus on destroying ISIL, over-the-top claims that this is World War III just play into their hands"). On Tuesday, former acting CIA director Michael Morell testified that “ISIS has gained affiliates faster than Al Qaeda ever did.” We are not a strong nation when you fail to mention our sailors or the recent attacks in San Bernadino. We are not a strong nation when you fail to call these terrorists by what they actually are. We are not a strong nation when you plan to cut 40,000 soldiers over two years. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

"We agree that real opportunity requires every American to get the education and training they need to land a good-paying job. The bipartisan reform of No Child Left Behind was an important start, and together, we've increased early childhood education, lifted high school graduation rates to new highs, and boosted graduates in fields like engineering. In the coming years, we should build on that progress, by providing pre-K for all, offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job-ready on day one, and we should recruit and support more great teachers for our kids."

We are not a strong nation when our teachers are broke. We are not a strong nation when our education system is failing. We are not a strong nation when more money is spent on illegal immigrants and welfare programs which help those unemployed than on educating the generations to come so that they can earn their own money instead of relying on government intervention. In 2014, 69 percent of government spending was on major entitlements and benefits while only 1 percent was spent on education. We are not a strong nation when the Federal Government oversteps its constitutional boundaries and begins to dip its hands into education but refuses to pay teachers. Nor are we a strong nation if you refuse to accept that education should be as expensive as national defense. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

We are not a strong nation when we have to remind ourselves that black lives matter. We are not a strong nation when the police are killing citizens. We are not a strong nation when people die at the hands of officers during detainment. We are not strong when members of a specific group of people are being killed daily. We are not a strong nation when we have to be reminded that lives matter. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

"I believe a thriving private sector is the lifeblood of our economy. I think there are outdated regulations that need to be changed, and there's red tape that needs to be cut. But after years of record corporate profits, working families won't get more opportunity or bigger paychecks by letting big banks or big oil or hedge funds make their own rules at the expense of everyone else, or by allowing attacks on collective bargaining to go unanswered."

We are not a strong nation when small businesses are failing. We are not a strong nation when more regulations are passed daily than are needed. About 2,500-4,500 regulations are passed each year. We are not a strong nation when your Executive Branch cripples businesses. We are not a strong nation when you begin to drift from security and defense to controlling citizens and the economy. We are not a strong nation when bureaucracy has taken over. We are not a strong nation when more Americans are settling for part-time work or just giving up hope than those who have jobs. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

"Now, I'm guessing we won't agree on health care anytime soon."

You're right, Mr. President; we won't agree on healthcare. We are not a strong nation because of Obamacare. We are not a strong nation when you use backroom tactics and “favors” to key lawmakers in order to pass an agenda against popular will. We are not a strong nation when millions of Americans lose their insurance because of your policy. We are not a strong nation because your entitlements are the bulk of the $19 trillion national debt. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

"We also can't try to take over and rebuild every country that falls into crisis. That's not leadership; that's a recipe for quagmire, spilling American blood and treasure that ultimately weakens us. It's the lesson of Vietnam, of Iraq — and we should have learned it by now."

We are not a strong nation when we forget our own mistakes. We are not a strong nation when we continue to believe that we must police the rest of the world when it is not our right to step inside sovereign borders and take over. We are not a strong nation when in the eyes of the rest of the world we are tyrants taking over. We are not a strong nation when we must continuously remind ourselves that we are not the world's police. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

"That's why we need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This isn't a matter of political correctness. It's a matter of understanding what makes us strong. The world respects us not just for our arsenal; it respects us for our diversity and our openness and the way we respect every faith. His Holiness, Pope Francis, told this body from the very spot I stand tonight that 'to imitate the hatred and violence of tyrants and murderers is the best way to take their place.' When politicians insult Muslims, when a mosque is vandalized or a kid bullied, that doesn't make us safer. That's not telling it like it is. It's just wrong. It diminishes us in the eyes of the world. It makes it harder to achieve our goals. And it betrays who we are as a country."

We are not a strong nation when we turn our backs on Syrian refugees. We are not a strong nation when we have more fear than humanity. We are not a strong nation when we say "It's not my problem; I'm an American." We are not a strong nation when we forget that it might not be our problem because we are Americans, but that it is our problem because we are people and leaders of this world. We are not a strong nation when have allowed fear to overcome us. We are not a strong nation when we back "politicians" who preach hatred and fear. We are not a strong nation when the GOP front runner is a racist. We are not a strong nation when presidential candidates begin to encroach on the Bill of Rights. We are not strong when we wage a war on religion. We are not a strong nation when Donald Trump forgets that the constitution begins with "We the People" and spews hatred and lies. We are not a strong nation when fear is more powerful than love and hope. We are not a strong nation, Mr. President.

We are not a strong nation, Mr. President. We are no longer a strong nation and this comes at the hands of our Congressional leadership, our president, and ourselves. We have allowed our nation to collapse. We have allowed our government to become too big, overstepping every boundary. We have allowed the men and women who run this country to become plagued with corruption. We have forgotten that things need to change before we become nothing but an example of what not to be. We have allowed ourselves to fall behind the rest of the world's leaders. We have done this to ourselves. So do not lie to us, Mr. President. Tell us the truth: We are not a strong nation anymore. Mr. President, The United States of America is weak.