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Alan
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Speech to the Louisiana Republican
Convention
Alan Keyes
January 27, 1996
John Rondino
[introduction]: Good
Afternoon. It is indeed a privilege and an honor to be here today. And
especially I am thankful and grateful to have the opportunity to introduce an
individual who today needs no introduction.
Many, many today across this great land of ours, but not as many as before,
are saying, "Who is this man?" I believe Ambassador Keyes is the
man who speaks for the nation. I believe Ambassador Keyes is a man who can
express what we feel in our hearts. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe that
Ambassador Keyes is the moral voice of America today. [applause]
It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you, again, Ambassador Alan Keyes.
[applause]
Alan Keyes: Thank you. Thank you very much. Praise God. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
I've got to tell you it feels good to be back. Any of you here last year when
I came? It's been a very interesting, its been a
very hectic year for me. I'm glad to see that it has also been a good year
for Louisiana. I was reminded of that the other day. I visited with Governor
Foster and he is one of that new breed of politicians that is starting to
come forward now. We are seeing them at work in the Congress of the United
States, in the freshman class of Republicans. It's almost enough to destroy
my confidence in my bad opinion of politicians. [laughter]
These are folks who don't understand what is the usual way of doing it. They
have gotten elected--they have made it clear what it is they believe in, and
then they have actually gotten into office. And when they start to act, they
remember what it is they are supposed to believe in, and who it is that they
are supposed to represent. [applause]
And the Republican freshman have stood firm against the demagoguery of Bill
Clinton, insisting that the taxpayers of the United States are finally going
to get some respect from their spendthrift government. [applause]
And Governor Foster is standing firm in insisting that finally we are going
to return in this state, as we must return around the country, to the real
principles of the civil rights movement--which demanded not special
privileges, and quotas, and benefits, but equal justice for all people.
[applause]
I have got to say that I am personally pleased, as well, to see that there is
great promise for the future, as well, because another man of similar
conviction, who I deeply believe will be giving us the same example, Woody
Jenkins, has decided to get into the Senate race. [applause]
Now, I've got to tell you, I can't stand up here and claim credit for this,
but when I was here last time around and we did have occasion to talk, I
encouraged him to do that--and I'm so glad that he is doing it. Looking at
the challenges that we are faced with right now, I think there is nothing
more important than that we should have men and women of principle--who are
willing to stand by those principles--in public office in this country.
I think we have come to a crisis in this nation's history when, in fact, the
ability to remember and to articulate the great principles of this nation's
heart may be the most important and crucial ability of all. The consequences
of forgetting who we are, are before us everywhere we look now. It seems like
you can't open the newspaper, or watch television, or see anything, just
about, without being reminded of the great crisis that we are in. Not a
crisis of war, not a crisis of money, economics, but a crisis that is
nonetheless threatening the future of this country.
And you can read that threat in the mirror that is held up to our future, the
state and condition of our young generations. When you have
fourteen-year-olds raping ten-year-olds and fifteen-year-olds killing
seventeen-year-olds, when you have kids, as a survey showed recently, going
to their school not as if they were going to learn but as if they were going
to war--then you know that there is something going awfully wrong. You know a
society has got to wake up when it is looking into the face of its future and
seeing generations that are now bent, it seems, on self-destruction. And why?
Bent on self-destruction because, I believe, that they are no longer getting
the courageous leadership, the guidance, the council, the discipline, the
sense of principle, and standards that they ought to get from the generation
that should be their leaders, that should be their guide, that should be
their elders in spirit and in truth. [applause]
And nothing represents this more clearly, than the President we have sitting
in the White House today. A President who has taken the lead, along with his
wife, Hillary, in standing for everything that tears down the traditional
heart, the traditional values, the traditional strength of this nation's
life. [applause]
From the moment he got into office, he stood up to champion those causes that
will destroy the sense of moral and sexual responsibility and tear down our
family lives, to promote gay rights and condom distribution and everything
that he could think of to exemplify, before the American people, that
licentious concept of freedom that is in fact destroying our nation.
[applause]
He stands with those people, as I have often said, these folks like Bill
Clinton, they stand before you with an offer that you really have to think
hard about. On the one hand, they want to give you the condoms, and on the
other hand, they want to take away your guns. Now I want you to think about
what this means. [laughter]
There is a serious point in all of this. At the heart of the condom
distribution mentality is the same attitude that is at the heart of the gun
control mentality. They look at you, and they say, "You are not capable
of freedom. You cannot control your sexual passions. Here is a mechanical
device that will keep you from suffering the consequences of your
licentiousness. You cannot control your violent passions, therefore we can't
trust you with these dangerous weapons. The government will have to take them
away." In both instances, that mentality is based on the same thought
that we are no longer a people capable of self-control, capable of
self-discipline, capable of self-government, which is supposed to be the end
and aim of this nation's life. [applause]
I believe that in the election to come what we have to do as a people is
stand up and with one voice, and one heart, and all our votes, reject that
doctrine which says that we are no longer to be a free people. We must
reclaim our position under the Declaration and under the Constitution of this
country. But we have also got to understand that if we are going to do it, it
is going to require more than words, because freedom is not an easy
discipline. If we want to remain a free people, then we are going to have to
accept, again, the clear understanding of the foundations of freedom. And
those foundations set fourth when this nation started have not changed. Some
people want us to forget them. Some people are embarrassed to remember them.
But they are still the same, and we ignore them at our peril.
When the Founders started out in this country, they put those great words in
the Declaration--remember them, "We hold these truths to be
self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their
Creator with certain unalienable rights." And when we hear those words,
a lot of people think that that means that this government is based on
rights. And they have gotten it partially right, but they don't see to the
heart of it. Because what that statement says, what it makes clear as the
first principle of America's existence, is not that we have rights, but that
there is a God who created us, and who, in that creation, endowed us with
those rights. [applause]
And when I say that, there are some people--there may even be some people in
this crowd--who will accuse me of bringing religion into politics. I did not
write the Declaration. The Declaration was written by the Founders of this
country. It was hallowed in the blood of the patriots that fought the
Revolution. It is steeped in the blood of those who have fought on every
battlefield and in every war in order to vindicate those ideals. And when we
return to our nation's principles, we are returning, we must return, to that
understanding of our freedom which sees us standing on the common ground of
that transcendent authority from which that freedom comes. [applause]
So I'll tell you outright. I'll tell you outright. The first principle of a
Keyes administration--it will apply in foreign policy, it will apply in
domestic policy, it will apply everywhere. There is a God, and we are not
him! [applause]
I will not join the Clinton Democrats who worship government as their god! I
will not join the Dole Republicans who worship power as their god! I will not
join the Forbes Republicans who worship money as their god! I will stand
where the Founders of this nation stood, and I will give my respect and
allegiance to the Creator, God, who is the ground of justice, and who is the
ground of all our human rights!" (extended applause)
And He is clear. If that is where we stand, then some things are pretty
clear. When they come to us in the abortion doctrine, and they say that they
will substitute the woman's choice for God's choice in determining the
humanity of an unborn child, I will look them in the eye, and I will say,
"You stand with that false god of choice, I will stand with the God of
justice!" [applause]
When they come to me and they say that they want to substitute the power of
government, and government money, and government programs for the power of
that natural institution God ordained for human beings to care for one
another, I will say, "You stand with the bureaucrats, I will stand with
the family! [applause]
And it is time we begin that stance. A lot of folks accuse me of being a
preacher. [laughter] I've got to tell you, watching that exchange the other
night with Clinton, in his State of the Union Address, and Mr. Dole, there,
afterwards--you have got to know something. This guy, Bill Clinton, don't
underestimate him. I mean, in 1994 he was just about as politically dead as
you get. His corpse was stinking up the political environment so that even
his own Democratic colleges did not want to have anything to do with him. And
now he is running around just like he is living and breathing in political
terms. And the press is out there talking about some sort of comeback for
him. And you watch his State of the Union Address the other night, and you
have got to marvel. This guy lies! [laughter] But, he lies with passion, though.
[laughter] He lies with a certain conviction. He is one of those people who
gets up there and he forgets that what he is saying is not true. [laughter]
Just long enough to convince you that he really means it.
Now you tell me we have put up against that juicy, passionate, convicted
falsehood a bone-dry heartless representative of truth, and you tell me where
we are going to end up. It is not going to work. But also that bone-dry
presentation, do you know where that comes from? It comes from not remembering
what we stand for.
I am not in this battle--just as I did not fight against communism just
because communism was bad. I fought against communism because freedom is
good. And I don't fight against government spending and government waste and
high government regulation and government taxation, as I have done throughout
my whole public life, just because I am against government. I stand there
because I am for the things that only family can provide. I am for the things
that only people in the private sector, in their private businesses, based on
their private courage and initiative, can achieve. [applause]
I remember that this is not a debate between the Democrats who care so much
that they will spend the government's money, and the Republicans who are out
there to get all that money back. See, I don't believe that the American
people would want that money back if they thought it was doing any good. The
reason we got into this situation in the first place is because the people of
this country are decent, good-hearted people. Because you come to them and
you say, "There's somebody in need," and they are going to say,
"Well, what do I do." And you tell them a whole bunch of falsehoods
about how the taxes and the bureaucrats will make that person's life better,
and they will reach into their pockets and they will let you take out more,
and more, and more.
It was by exploiting the decent conscience of this country that they
established this liberal monstrosity in Washington! [applause]
But what we have to remember is that that conscience is still alive. And we
can't afford to go before the American people giving the impression we don't
care. I care deeply. I care about the children who are dying in the streets.
I care about the elderly who may be neglected. But I will tell you I also
care deeply about the lies that have been told when people stand up and say a
heartless government bureaucracy, through a welfare program that has
destroyed families, destroyed the character of children through education
that undermines sexual responsibility is the answer to our needs. Because it
is not. If we want that answer, then we have got to contrast that impersonal
bureaucracy with the real alternative for caring for people.
There is only one institution that lets you care for people the way they
should be cared for--which is not with a check, and a handout, and a kiss off
from the government. It is with love, and a hand, and a kiss from those who
ought to be your stay, your support, your help in this life.
I think we ought to stand before the American people and make it clear that
over there you have Bill Clinton offering to continue to send out all those
checks that would not be needed if they hadn't have taken the money away in
the first place. And he is offering to the elderly a chance to be taken care
of by a few digits on a little piece of paper, and a bureaucracy that does
not care if you live or die. And what we stand for is doing those things that
are necessary to restore the integrity of that institution that will care for
the elderly through the love in the eyes of their grandchildren.
It is going to be hard work. But you know, we are not going to do that work
if we don't make it our top priority. And this is where I end, because I am
finding as I go around the country that lot of people support what I am
saying. And I get people all the time saying, "Love your message. Really
great message. Keep it in there. You keep that message going," and so
forth and so on. But maybe they don't get that message, because the message
is very clear. There are people in this race who tell us that money is our
top priority. There are people who tell us that trade and foreign policy are
our top priority. There are people who have all kinds of things at the top of
their list. I think there is only one thing at the top of the list in terms
of this nation's top priorities. We must restore the integrity of the
marriage-based two parent family, put back together the moral foundations of
our most basic institution, or this nation will perish. [applause]
And if you believe that, you have got to understand, nobody in this race has
that priority, nobody. Oh, they will put it on their list down at second, or
third, or fourth. They will mention it as an afterthought. Some of them even
stand against it in their hearts, like I believe that Steven Forbes does, and
has written to that affect. But today, because he knows the political
reality, he will trot out some words to make you think he is where he
belongs. But this is not good enough.
We need to speak from the heart of these issues that matter to the heart of
the American people. We must get them moving to save our family institution,
and the institution of childhood innocence, and the institution of
self-discipline and self-responsibility that go along with it--or you and I
both know that we will, before some of us in this room shut our eyes in the
sleep of death, see the end of American freedom. Is that what you want? How
many elections are you going to waste? How many votes are you going to take
before you insist that that which is the nation's greatest danger be made the
top priority of the nation's life?
That is the question that my campaign puts before you. It is not just a
question about this individual or that individual--because I don't believe
that presidential politics is just about standing before people and crowing
about what a great guy you are. We have a lot of great people in this race.
And we have a great country to save. But I will tell you, we are not going to
save it if we fail to understand what comes first. This nation is not
suffering from--in the Depression we suffered a money crisis, without a
doubt. During the Carter era we faced an international crisis, and we had to
find the will and wherewithal to meet it. The crisis we face in this land
today--and you know this--is a crisis of the heart and of the character.
We have got to find the wisdom to see it that way, and the courage--even when
others tell us it can't win to stand in the right path and insist that this
battle be fought and won for the sake of our children and our children's
children. We want them, don't we, to grow up in a land where they will know
the reality not just the memory of freedom.
But freedom won't last if we don't return to those sound and solid foundations
set down by our forebears--a freedom grounded not in what we get, not in what
we put in our wallets, not in what some politician will stand up here and
promise you that he is going to do for you; a freedom that is grounded,
rather, in our claim to dignity and our respect for the almighty will of God
from which that dignity comes. Return this nation to those true foundations,
and we will walk on strong, on solid, common ground into the better destiny
of the next future--standing as we are supposed to stand, as a shining
example of what lies ahead in God's hope for this great human race.
Thank you very much.
http://www.keyesarchives.com/transcript.php?id=23
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