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Alan
Keyes’
Pro-life Advocacy
Faith
and Freedom Foundation
PO Box 1310
Herndon, VA 20172
info@faithandfreedomfoundation.com
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Our Conservative Principles: The Path
To Victory
Alan Keyes
November 20, 1998
Leadership Conference, Washington, D.C.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
I've got to say, it is remarkable to see so many faces--it's
"conservative" leadership conference, is that right? I mean, if you
read the papers these days, you would think that conservatism was dead and
gone. I don't think that is true.
But at least in the interpretation they are giving at the polls, in the
general media, they want us to believe that the meaning of the last election
day was that Republicans, somehow or other, were too conservative for the
last couple of years.
Have they been living in a different country than I have?
They also want us to believe that part of the problem, or maybe the main
problem, was that they were so obsessed with impeachment. I saw a comment
last night on CNN, in the wake of Ken Starr's very fine and capable
presentation, in which, after Schippers had gone
back and forth with Starr, and for the first time that I can remember, he
actually managed in the course of his questioning to present the best and
most serious argument as to why the President's conduct is an impeachable
offense--that it is in fact an assault on the Constitution, on the judicial
branch, and so forth. And after the whole thing was over, the reporter said,
"you know, if the Republicans had presented this view of things in
August, then the President probably wouldn't be in the position that he is in
today"--and he meant by that with the likelihood of surviving in office.
And that is true.
Somehow or other, in the course of the last couple of years and especially in
the last couple of months, we watched as the Republican leadership abdicated
their role, in the hopes, I suppose, of making things better for themselves
at the polls. They in fact did just the opposite. I think they managed
thoroughly to de-energize and demoralize that conservative base which had
elected them in 1994 in the first place, and which constitutes their only
hope for election in the future.
And I would predict--as I did some time back; I was one of those folks who
was confidently predicting that if they continued down the road that they
were going down, they would lose the base and do badly in this election.
Sadly speaking, they did.
And I will predict to you confidently now that if they continue down the road
that they have gone, if in fact Mr. Livingston and others complete their
promised agenda of conciliation, bipartisanship, and further compromise with
the left wing in this country, then in the year 2000, I predict confidently
that the Republican Party will not only go the way of the Whigs, they will
undoubtedly go the way the Conservatives went in Canada. They will go
suddenly; they will go without warning, and they will go totally and
completely--you cannot win an election when you have betrayed your base in
the country.
I wouldn't want anybody to suggest, though, that I was welcoming that
outcome. I do not. Nor am I suggesting that I am going to sit back passively
and let it happen. I believe, in point of fact, that over the course of the
next couple of years--if not, sadly speaking, in the next couple of months;
and I'll explain that--the fate of this republic, of this system of
self-government, is going to be decided.
I think we sometimes fool ourselves into believing that we are going to
continue, with the course of action we have seen, with the elections and the
hoopla, and we will go on with this constitutional system of government for
just as long as we please, and we can take it for granted that we will lose a
little, and fight back, and win again. I think that the evidence of the last
several months is clear: we now have elements in this country who have
abandoned their allegiance to the constitutional system. We have elements,
particularly in the Democratic Party, who no longer believe in the rule of
law, no longer believe in the constitutional structures, and who have stood
before the American people in the course of the last several months and
boldly made the argument that the President is above the law, elected
officials are above the law, and that if you follow the right left-wing party
line you will not be held accountable for your violations and abuses of
power.
That means that we are close to the time when an election in this country is
going to decide it all, and we've put into place those who will not
relinquish power on the right terms of the Constitution, or maintain
themselves in power with respect for the Constitution. And it is time that we
began to recognize it. This republic is entering its last days, if we do not
act decisively.
And I say that with no sense of satisfaction, obviously, but with a real
sense that right now we are living in a delusion. And that includes, by the
way--and this may make some folks uncomfortable--a bunch of conservatives.
You are living in la-la land. You are living in a land that would actually
follow what I watched in the last several weeks, when Steve Largent--who was
an individual I put the greatest hopes and trust in--actually conducted a
campaign based on the notion that it would be possible to place on the back
burner in this country our concern with the moral issues, with the pro-life
issue, to walk down the path of "money-is-God" conservatism, and
act as if that is in any sense going to help this country or even lead to
victory for conservatives. This is wrong; it will not work this way.
And those of you who believe this, who think that an agenda of tax cuts and
budget discussions is going to save America--you have not been watching. We
are in the midst of the greatest moral crisis this nation has ever known. And
that crisis is exemplified in the crisis in the White House right now. It is
not an accident that a scandal that involves a crisis of personal and moral
responsibility is threatening the integrity of our foremost federal
institution and threatening the integrity of our philosophy of
self-government.
If you think that is an accident; if you think that this is just a
coincidence of Bill Clinton's character, you are wrong. The abuse of the
human person that is represented in his instrumental manipulative attitude
toward women, toward Monica Lewinsky, toward his colleagues, and toward the
American people, is the same abusive attitude toward the individual that Bill
Clinton exemplified when he signed away the executive orders that protected
the rights of the innocent unborn from abuse by the executive branch, the
same abuse that we saw when he vetoed the partial-birth abortion ban and
allowed the crime of infanticide to continue sanctioned by the laws in this
country. We are seeing the same moral corruption.
And we will not deal with that agenda of moral corruption by entering into it
ourselves, with an abused agenda, focused on tax cuts or anything else, that
has in fact been turned, in the last couple of years, into a tax bribe that
imitates the New Deal's contemptuous attitude for our people. Tax cuts were
never a way to bribe the middle class into supporting some political
coalition.
According to our conservative principles, they represent the desire to return
power and control of our economic resources to the grass roots people of this
country. THAT is our agenda. It is not a money agenda. It is the moral agenda
of self-government. And we should not allow it to be turned into some kind of
a political game. We are making an error if we believe that we can compete
with the Democrats on their ground. It is not possible. That violation of
fundamental conservative principles will prepare us for destruction.
Because I believe that it was never the case that conservatism in this
country meant conserving the fruits of anybody's greed. I think conservatism
in this country means conserving our liberty, and the system of
self-government that makes it possible.
And the ground of that system of self-government, for all our talk about it,
is not our money success. We do forget, don't we, that this nation was
founded long before we became the world's economic power. That its great
institutions were put in place long before it was proven that this continent
would produce anything but a gaggle of backwater states. The principles on
which this nation is based were not principles that aimed simply to free the
greed and greed corruption of the American people. The
were principles stated in terms of some of the highest moral ideals that
human beings have ever articulated, and that understood that at the end of
the day, one truth is clear: we have no claim to rights, we have no claim to
worth, we have no claim to human dignity, except in terms of the God-given
rights that come to us not from the Constitution or the Bill of Rights, but
from the hand of our Creator.
The fundamental premise of this nation's life is not a money premise, and it
is not an economic premise. It is the moral premise that all rights and all
justice rest on the authority of almighty God.
Rightly understood, then, that conservative principle involves us in
respecting, in the exercise of our rights, the authority from which those
rights derive, and in that respect offering to our people not a philosophy of
big government or small government or no government, but a philosophy of
self-government, grounded in the view that human beings are indeed capable of
governing themselves, beginning with their own passions, their own person,
and their own family. That is the key principle that I think runs through
every aspect of the conservative agenda.
It runs through, of course, the moral agenda, which I believe is fundamental
and which, in our day, must be put first. And in this I disagree with some
folks who are out there now touting all kinds of things, and offering them
for the future, as if we are going to put together some kind of a coalition
in the next couple of years that puts our moral concerns on the back burner,
pays a little lip service to them, and enters into an agenda in which we
compete with the Democrats to see who can do the most to buy and sell the
votes of this electorate.
I think that this is degrading. I think that it represents the kind of
destruction of our political life that Bill Clinton epitomizes. And I think
that the Clintonizing of the Republican Party and
of America will simply do to us what he is already doing to the
presidency--it will destroy our integrity, and destroy us.
The antidote to that has got to be an agenda that understands: put the moral
concerns first. Not as an afterthought; not on the back burner; not with
hesitation; not with shame. But first, at the top of the agenda, because
without moral discipline, nothing else will work. We will not have decent
schools, we will not have thriving free enterprises, if we destroy that moral
foundation which is the basis for all discipline, for all initiative, and for
all order, civility and decency in our country.
And that means that at the top of our agenda we have to deal with those
issues that corrupt our moral heart, starting . . . not ending . . .
starting, and without embarrassment, addressing the issue of abortion first
and foremost. That issue represents the corrupt principle that we can substitute
human choice for God's choice in the determination of human rights and human
worth. That is a vicious lie, and on that vicious lie this republic will flounder
if we do not tackle it, front and center, now.
It also means recognizing that the agenda of family must start out with the
restoration of that understanding of moral discipline and responsibility
which is in fact the foundation of family life.
And here I have to digress, for a moment, into a matter of contemporary
concern, because, you know, there is this debate--you've heard of it--and
inquiry going on in the Congress right now about impeachment. I'm sure you
haven't missed that. And I'm sure also that some of you have not missed the
fact that there are now Republicans in the Congress who are coming
forward--like Congressman Souder from Pennsylvania, or Senator
Specter--somehow to make the argument that it is going to be possible for
Republicans and conservatives to treat the impeachment issue as if it is
simply a matter of polls and political calculation.
I think we need to be very clear. Anybody in this country who stands up and
pretends that they care about the family, pretends that they care about
so-called "family values," and restoring and rebuilding the
foundations for family life--anyone like that in our politics, anyone like
that in the Congress of the United States, who then casts a vote to let Bill
Clinton off the hook in terms of this incredible and degrading scandal . . .
they are liars, they are phony, and we should actually kick them out of
office.
Some people have been making the argument that "his adultery is not
really an impeachable offense, but if he lied about it . . ." Of course
if he lied about it, he should be impeached. Of course if he lied under oath
about it, he has assaulted the judicial branch and should be thrown from
office--we know this. There shouldn't even be any debate over it.
But do you want to know the truth? If we are serious about our families, if
we are serious about our children's consciences, then there should be no
debate about the fact that if an individual who occupies the highest and most
visible office in our land conducts himself in such a way as to shock and
denigrate the ideas of moral responsibility and spousal fidelity needed to
maintain family life, that is also an impeachable offense. That is an offense
for which he should be thrown out of office.
We cannot have strong families if we have fathers who lie to their spouses
and disrespect their moral responsibilities to their children. That is what
Bill Clinton has done; he has done it from an office he begged for that put
him on a platform that nobody in this country, including our children, could
ignore. And now that he has stained and abused that platform, he is no longer
fit to occupy it. And if we leave him there, the damage that is done to our
moral fabric, to our children, and to our families, will be the moral
equivalent of a nuclear war. And we will not survive that holocaust as a free
people.
It is time we took this seriously. And in taking it seriously we will restore
the sense that at the root of our agenda of self-government and liberty there
is a strong recognition that, without moral responsibility, freedom is a
curse. Without moral discipline, self-government cannot survive.
That also ought to put us in mind of what I think is really the fairly simple
practical agenda that we face in the course of the next several years. Some
folks like to act like it is terribly complicated, and we need this list of
twelve, fifteen, twenty different things we've got to do with the government,
with Social Security, with this and with that. The Republicans went down this
road for the last several months--trying to prove that somehow or another
they were going to become the "party of good government." They were
going to show that they could "take the reins of power" and they
were going to do wonderful things with government.
I wish that somebody had reminded them forcefully along the way that they
were not elected to make the federal government more effective. They were
elected to take power and resources out of the hand of the federal government
and return them to the hands of our people--control over our money, control
over our institutions, control over our schools.
And that recommends a very simple and straightforward agenda, which they
should have pursued by now.
Step number one: we need to take back control of ourselves by tackling the
issues of moral priority.
Step number two: we need to take back control of our future, by making sure
that it is parents at the grassroots, not federal educrats
or politicians or bureaucrats, who control our schools and the education
system in this country.
Just as abortion should have been on the front burner, so should school
choice have been on the front burner. They should have fought for it, and
they should fight for it, until they make Bill Clinton and everyone like him
put up or shut up in terms of returning control of our schools to our people.
That is going to restore the integrity of our educational system.
And we need also to restore the control of our dollars to our people. But how
do we do that? A few tax bribes here and there? I'm rather getting sick and
tired of having these folks approach us and say "I'm going to offer you
$2,000 for every family." Steve Forbes said that the other day, saying
that's what we ought to do as a down payment on the flat tax.
When are we going to stop acting and thinking like slaves? We should not get
down on our knees and thank "massa"
government because they let us keep a little more of our own money. It is our
money! We earn it. We have earned it in the sweat of our brow. And the agenda
of tax cuts turned into tax bribes for politicians to use to manipulate our
people must be rejected!
I think there is only one thoroughgoing way to make sure that we will get
back control of this economy and control of our economic lives. And radical
as it sounds, it is actually merely returning to the original traditions and
Constitution of this country. We should stop messing about with tax cuts, and
stop messing about with phony slogans about abolishing the IRS.
I want to abolish the IRS, but I'll tell you something--you are not going to
abolish the IRS in reality until you have abolished the slave tax that the
IRS administers. There is no half-way house. As long as you give government
the presumptive claim to any percentage of your income, they will, in effect,
be in control of your economic lives.
And that is why I believe that there is one platform, and one platform alone,
that represents the economic liberation of our people. And the first step in
that platform is to abolish the income tax, and return to the original
Constitution of this country. Fund the federal government with tariffs,
duties and excise taxes as the Founders of this nation envisaged--return to
the system that in the 19th century produced surplus after surplus after
surplus in the federal government's budget, until there was so much of the
surplus that it became an embarrassment in the early part of this century.
Well, they were successful in getting rid of that embarrassment. And every
since, under the regime of the income tax, we have lived with the surrender
of more and more of the economic control over our lives.
I think that the spectacle that most disturbs me about the course of the last
several weeks and months is the spectacle of this people. Some people say
that they are all upset--I'm upset that Bill Clinton turned out to be such a
lying, lawless man. But do you know something? I am more upset at the signs
that we have become a people uninterested in the truth, and willing for the
sake of our dollars, and our greed, and our materialistic delusions, to
tolerate this lawlessness and immorality.
I believe that if conservatives wish to achieve victory in this country in
the course of the next several years, then we should stop up our ears to all
of the editorial writers, and all of the phony liars, telling us to abandon
our conservative principles. The heart of this nation hungers above all right
now, I believe, for one thing--integrity. Integrity understood as an
unwillingness to buy and sell ones soul for the sake of ANY material
thing--not power, not money, not the satisfaction of ambition and lust. For
NOTHING should we be willing to give up that gift of moral capacity which is
the highest grace that God has granted to our nature.
And I believe if we stand up before the American people and offer them
forthrightly, without equivocation and without compromise, an example of that
integrity, in the way we stand for and about those issues that matter most to
the future of this country, then we will be able to put our faith, in the
end, in the better angels of the American nature, and in our almighty God.
And with that faith we will turn this nation around. Not by polls; not by
calculation; not by clever argument--but simply by the willingness to look
for and accept the simple truths without which the integrity of this nation
cannot be preserved.
No self-government without self-discipline.
No continued representative government, if we do not reclaim the power and
responsibility that belong to us and cannot be vested in government
institutions.
And no real prospect that we shall achieve victory of any kind if we are not
willing, in every case, before every region and audience of this country, to
represent those principles boldly and without shame.
I think that if we are willing to adopt that stance in the presentation and
the understanding of our principles, then we will do more than achieve some
success for our conservatism. We will in fact do what, in a sense, only we, I
believe, have a calling to do in this nation's life right now. And that is
save our Constitution and save our free way of life. It has come down to
that. And in the next few years WE shall decide how it turns out. Act with
integrity, and we shall hand to our children intact the heritage and the
challenge of our freedom. Act without it, and they will live to curse us for
the day we lost God's gift of our great land of liberty.
I pray that you, with others, will understand and do what is right.
God bless you.
http://www.keyesarchives.com/transcript.php?id=68
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