What is Senator Armstrong's Speech?

It is a copypasta from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance in which Senator Armstrong rants to Raiden about lawyers, bureaucrats, and online trivia, repurposed by fans as a venting template.

Where did Senator Armstrong's Speech come from?

The monologue is spoken during the final boss fight in the 2013 PlatinumGames title Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, with the clip popularized by Stranding Reaper's YouTube upload.

What does Senator Armstrong's Speech mean?

In-game, Armstrong is pitching a social-Darwinist America; online, fans quote it as an over-the-top rant about whatever cultural annoyance they want to parody.

How do you use Senator Armstrong's Speech?

People paste the full text or a single line like "Fuck these limp-dick lawyers" into threads, or they rewrite it with new targets, as @UltimaShadowX did with the fighting game community.

Is Senator Armstrong's Speech still popular?

It is treated as a classic Metal Gear copypasta, with parodies still landing six-figure engagement a decade after the game's release.

Senator Armstrong's Speech

2013copypastaclassic

Published November 2, 2026

In the final boss fight of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Senator Armstrong rants to Raiden about memes, lawyers, and American decline, dropping the line "Fuck all these limp-dick lawyers and chicken-shit bureaucrats." After YouTuber Stranding Reaper uploaded the monologue in March 2013, gamers quoted it everywhere, and by 2018 the full rant was pinned on r/copypasta as one of the series' signature speeches.

metal gear memes copypasta memes villain memes boss fight memes political satire memes

Overview

Senator Armstrong's Speech / Limp Dick Lawyers and Chickenshit Bureaucrats is a copypasta lifted from the climactic Raiden vs. Armstrong fight in Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, where Armstrong rails against trivia news, celebrity gossip, and spineless politicians before trying to crack Raiden's skull1. Fans quote the full monologue verbatim or pull single lines like the "24/7 Internet spew of trivia and celebrity bullshit" jab when venting about American politics or online discourse2.

The speech works as copypasta because the phrasing is already theatrical, so dropping it into a Discord server or subreddit thread reads as earnest ranting and absurd shitposting at once. Posters often pair it with Jamieson Price's booming voice-over from the game, screenshots of a bloodied Armstrong, or riffs that swap his targets for whatever subculture the poster is annoyed with that week3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (source) / YouTube and Reddit (viral spread)

Date

2013

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance released in early 2013, and the final boss fight pits cyborg ninja Raiden against Senator Steven Armstrong, who delivers his nanomachine-fueled monologue mid-battle about forging a nation where the weak are weeded out1. Konami and PlatinumGames made the game; the meme itself grew from fans circulating the scene, not from an official promo.

On March 25, 2013, YouTube user Stranding Reaper uploaded a clean clip of the speech titled around Armstrong's rant, which pulled in millions of views over the following decade and became the go-to link whenever someone wanted to quote the scene4. The original artist of the meme format is unconfirmed, since the copypasta grew out of community reposting rather than a single creator's edit.

How It Spread

Within the Metal Gear fandom, the speech was already treated as canon-tier material by 2017, when Redditor ThePhxRises cited it in an r/metalgearsolid thread asking fans for their favorite series quotes5. The transcript migrated into general copypasta circulation on December 25, 2018, when Redditor RestlessRiot posted the full text to r/copypasta, where it collected more than 610 upvotes6.

Parodies followed as the lines became flexible enough to retrofit onto any subculture gripe. On May 22, 2023, Twitter user @UltimaShadowX rewrote the speech as Armstrong complaining about the fighting game community, racking up over 17,000 likes in under two weeks3. Ten days later, voice actor E.G. Simmons (@ganglemanVA) recorded a dramatic read of that parody as Raiden and Armstrong, and the video pulled over 11,000 likes in a day7.

Timeline

2013-02-19

Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance launches in North America, giving players Armstrong's final-boss monologue in context[1].

2013-03-25

YouTube user Stranding Reaper uploads the isolated speech clip that becomes the standard link for the copypasta[4].

2017-06-02

Redditor ThePhxRises highlights the speech in an r/metalgearsolid favorite-quotes thread, confirming its status inside the fandom[5].

2018-12-25

Redditor RestlessRiot posts the full transcript to r/copypasta, where it collects 610+ upvotes[6].

2023-05-22

Twitter user @UltimaShadowX publishes a fighting-game-themed parody of the speech that gets 17,000+ likes[3].

2023-06-01