“I have a dream.” We all recognize this as a defining moment in the history of the Civil Rights movement, and the great man who spoke the words: Martin Luther King, Jr. From those lips on that late summer day in 1963 came words that forever changed America, and above those lips was a mustache.

The mustache has been written off as of late, and I do not understand why. Sure, soldiers, police officers and Tom Selleck still proudly display the mustache, but the only other types of people sporting mustaches are hipsters. Hipsters are the dregs of our society, a group of people so vile they have destroyed the name of Brooklyn forever. They grow these mustaches, or “facial art,” as I refer to them, in irony. Irony!? How dare they ruin something so sacred, so valuable, so wonderfully a part of human history.

We need to bring the mustache back, gentlemen. Mustaches are special. They can be distinguished, fancy, jovial, blue-collar, white-collar, playful and they have found themselves on the faces of society’s most valuable men. Yes, there are King and Selleck, but there is also Gandhi. Charlie Chaplin. Freddie Mercury. Groucho Marx. Famed actor Hulk Hogan. So many of our presidents – Taft, Arthur, even Reagan would have had one if the Soviets had not stolen it – have proven that mustaches are, if anything, supremely patriotic and American.

In the 70s and 80s, the mustache was masculinity. Now masculinity is a pair of skinny jeans, a waxed chest, gelled-up hair and an iPad. Long gone are the days when Burt Reynolds, Billy Dee Williams and Ron Jeremy rocked mustaches and ruled the day. That day, however, might be coming back. A recent poll found 98 percent of women are more attracted to men with mustaches. (Sidenote: I could not provide this poll, and when pressed for a citation, I could only supply a YouTube link of that little Asian kid singing “I’m Yours” by Jason Mraz).

Yes, ladies, your dreams will come true if only us men band together and make the mustache a symbol of pride and power again. Hundreds of years ago, Ruissan men were forced to pay a tax in order to keep their facial art. Valiantly they rebelled against the Czar, preferring to die than have their visages hold vestiges of upper-lip love-bars. Rasputin died nearly a dozen times for his mustache.

And speaking of power – do you think Ted Turner would have nearly the amount of money without his mustache? Nietzsche would have a shred of philosophy written if not for his? Do you honestly think Dr. Phil would be able to shout at people for being fat so bravely without his mustache?

I know what you are thinking: “Didn’t Hitler have a mustache?” First of all, you cannot discount an entire group on the basis of our extremists; yes, we value the mustache like our extremists, but we believe that our mustaches are mustaches of peace. They are not us. Second, I decided to do a little research, and with the help of the Freedom of Information Act and the ghost of Albert Einstein’s mustache, I uncovered validated intelligence that Hitler’s mustache was in fact a spy working for the Allies. Among other bits of intelligence, the code-named “Secret ‘Stache” informed General Eisenhower that Hitler would not expect an attack on Normandy and that Adolf enjoyed his fries with peanut butter and mayo. Case closed – the ‘stache is the shizzle.

Mustaches can do anything. In Gandhi’s and King’s cases, they started movements. In the case of Super Mario Bros., it started an absolute cultural revolution. No mustaches, no video games, kids. And what of our childhood? How could we enjoy the Muppets without the Swedish Chef and his massive fjorgen-morgen-shporgen squirrel-tail resting on his face?   

  I believe in the power of the mustache. I wear a mustache in memory of those who fought for the rights of all mustaches. I wear a mustache to inspire the men who are afraid to come out and show that at heart they are mustache-oriented. But most of all, I wear the mustache for those who cannot: for the children, for the women, for the sick, for that guy in Powder.  I will never stop fighting for the mustache. Like another master of facial art, Malcom X, once said, “If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”