Debate
Republican Presidential Debate
November 21, 1999Arizona State University
[Excerpt]
ALAN KEYES, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I want to thank everyone for the opportunity to share some thoughts this evening. I think we'll have an exciting debate.
I do want folks to remember one thing that we so often talk to as if these elections are all about us and about our selfish agendas and what we're going to get out of it. I think it's very important to remember that as citizens, we hold in our hands the fate and future of this country, for our own sakes, but also the sake of our posterity in the future.
We may not have an economic crisis today, we may not have (inaudible) wars and international problems. But all I have to do is say the name Bill Clinton, and you are reminded that we are in the midst of the greatest moral crisis this nation has ever seen.
And I think it's time as citizens we took responsibility for addressing those issues like abortion and what's happening to our families that are destroying the heart and conscience of America and have fomented this crisis.
I think that's our top priority to deal with in the years ahead, and I would like to lead this country in articulating and dealing with those issues that are undermining our hope of liberty for the future. We can do it if we're serious enough to take it on now.
. . .
KEYES: For many years, my slogan on Social Security has been simple and clear. We've got to keep the promises we've made, because folks who have paid into the system in good faith ought to be able to expect that they will get the benefits that they have been promised. And we ought to guarantee that, even if we have to pay for it out of general revenue.
But in order to make this system solvent, in order to put it back where it belongs, we have to stop making promises we can't keep. And one promise we can't keep is the promise that the government is going to manage the money that people earn over the course of their lifetimes better than the people who earn that money.
We go out and work for it, we make the sacrifices, we have the sense to support ourselves, then we ought to be trusted to invest that money in ways that will produce the best return for us and our family.
I think that that is the principle that we must implement, not only, by the way, in Social Security. It's time we stopped thanking politicians when they make these promises that they're going to let us have a little bit more control of our own money.
It's time we demanded back control of every last cent of all our money that we earn. That's the way this country was when it was founded, and we did not have, for instance, an income tax system that gives the government a preemptive claim to a certain percentage of our income.
I think that we have to have a Social Security system that's based on giving the people who earn the money supervision over how it's invested, and I think in that context we also need to move forward, abolish the income tax, and return to the original Constitution of America, from the government with tariffs, duties, and excise taxes. sales taxes. And in that way we will restore control of our money and our economy to the people.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I think we have to be very wary of solutions that suggest to us that we ought to turn the health care system somehow over to government down (ph) the nation, allowances and control.
In every area of our life where we've followed that path, we've gotten into trouble, starting, for instance, with our schools and education. We certainly don't want to replicate that pattern in terms of health care.
I think we need to move in directions that will put power and control back in the hands of individual consumers and decision makers. That includes medical savings accounts, that includes voucherizing big parts of the government-sponsored program so that individuals have a stake in making the right decisions, going to providers that will provide them service they want at a price that they consider affordable.
That's what we do in every other walk of life. Imagine that we bought cars the way we buy health care, walking into the store, never looking at the price sticker, never understanding the relationship between what we're paying and the value we're getting, and then sending something off to a third party to pay for it for us.
We need to empower consumers to play their proper role in policing the relationship between price and value. And to do that, we need to give them back control over their medical spending dollars.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I think to me the example of role model is very easy. My role model would be Clarence Thomas. I think he represents an adherence to a proper understanding, both of the basis in principle of the Constitution, respect for the transcendent law that we have to respect in our exercise of our rights.
And also he does have something that I guess I will have as a litmus test for my judges. I will want to make sure that they read the Constitution, because it does-for instance, you-I think they ought to read it. And one litmus test will be, pay attention to what's in it and don't pretend that something's not in it that's there.
For instance, separation of church and state is nowhere in the Constitution, so why do they talk about it as if it is? And yet in the Constitution, it does require-hold it-it does require-it does require, as the overall statement of our goal, to secure the blessings of liberty, it says, to ourselves and our posterity.
Somebody tell me how they can pretend that killing babies in the womb, killing our future in the womb, respects the obligation to secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity. I want to make sure we'll have judges who will read the Constitution according to its terms and respect it according to the basic principles of justice and decency articulated in our great Declaration of Independence.
And if they won't do that, they won't get an appointment from a President Keyes.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I want to be careful about what you mean by that, because I think that we obviously are a global power, we have interests all over the world. And I think that in many regions of the world, we do have forces deployed where their deployment makes a definite contribution to regional peace and stability and to the defense of our own interests.
So I wouldn't want to carelessly suggest that we ought to be withdrawing those forces, be it from Korea or from Europe or elsewhere, where I think that they do serve a useful purpose in both maintaining our presence and defending our interests.
On the other hand, I think our principle ought to be very clear. It ought to be that when we are using those forces, deploying them, it serves our interests, not some abstract agenda of globalism, global sovereignty, global left-wing interventionism.
That's what we've gotten from the Clinton administration, including what it seems to me was a clearly unconstitutional undeclared war in Kosovo in violation of fundamental principles against international aggression, in which we were, in fact, not serving our national interests but serving abstract ideas of globalism for which American people should not be asked to die.
And I think that's very clear, and that would be the premise of Keyes administration. It would be based on an understanding that we serve the national interests of our people. Part of that interest is our leadership in the world, it is our defense of human rights around the world, it is our maintenance and sustenance of people's commitment to self-government around the world.
But it ought to be a clear commitment to our national interest first, not to globalism and internationalism.
. . .
KEYES: I think it's very important that we send a strong and unequivocal message to the Russian government that we are not going to tolerate idly the abuses that are taking place in Chechnya. No business as usual, no trade business as usual, no aid business as usual, no loans that are going to go through the government.
I think we ought to be taking the same policy toward the Russians on account of their abuses in Chechnya that I believe we should be taking toward the Communist Chinese dictators on account of their abuses in Communist China. We should be willing, not to dictate what other people do, but to control our own actions and relationships in a way that is compatible with our principles.
Second point, though, that we shouldn't miss, let us not pretend that we can afford to step back from this situation and just let Russia go any way it pleases. It's still, as it has always been the case in Europe, constitutes a very important element. If it goes very bad, it could prove very dangerous to the rest of Europe and to our interests.
That means that we should be working to open up avenues of cooperation and support so that we can work with the decent Russian people in order to begin to replace the regime of gangsterism and kleptocracy.
We understood how to do this years ago when we had to work around and through governments that were oppressing their people. But we did not wish to abandon those people to the not-so-tender mercies of their governments. It is that kind of creative work with the people of Russia that we need now to redevelop in our policy so that we will develop an alternative to the gangsterism, and not let Russia go in a direction that could destabilize the whole of Europe.
. . .
KEYES: I don't think there's anybody in the country who would disagree with the notion that we ought to be doing our utmost to make sure that criminals don't get guns, and that those who use guns have the book thrown at them, so that we will not have felons making use of these weapons against innocent citizens.
But you and I both know that that's not the issue in the gun control debate. The issue is whether or not we're going to respect the fundamental right in the Constitution, and fear is being fomented now, not about the criminal element, but about ourselves.
We should no longer be trusted with guns. Why? Because we're not good enough to be free, I suppose. We no longer have the self- discipline, the character, the integrity necessary to have access to the means of self-defense without killing ourselves and each other in some murderous fashion.
That, by the way, is not a question about guns, it's a question about our estimate of our own character, self-discipline, and decency. And I think it's time we began to understand, the answer is not gun control any more than it's condoms and other forms of external control.
The answer is self-control, and the basis of self-control is conscience, and the basis of conscience is the acknowledgment that our founders put in the very foundation stone of this nation's life, that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God.
You want conscience back in America? Put that principle back in our lives and in our hearts.
. . .
KEYES: If there were a fifth podium on this stage, and G.W. Bush was behind it, I don't know that I'd address a single question to G.W. Bush. I'd go on doing what I do anyway, because I don't think this election is about talking to G.W. Bush. He doesn't want to talk to anybody else.
All right. I think this election is about talking to the American people and being honest with them, not lying to them. It's time we got past this gutless happy-face approach to education that doesn't want to admit the truth. G.W. Bush says we're not slouching toward Gomorrah. He may be right, you know. We're not slouching toward Gomorrah, we're galloping toward Gommorah.
I think we're doing more than that, we're probably by now galloping around the town square in Gommorah. And if we don't do something about it, if we don't do something about it, we will have lost the moral foundations that sustain our liberty.
And we need candidates who aren't so interested in pandering for their votes, for your votes, that they're only willing to look you in the eye and speak the truth. The question of the last several years has not been about Bill Clinton's character or just the government's character or leaders' character, it's about your character and about how much longer you're going to tolerate the destruction of every decent principle of American life, starting with the principle that ought to guarantee the life of our children in the womb.
When are you going to wake up? When are you going to care enough about the future to stop listening to all these selfish appeals and start acting like the citizens you're supposed to be, caring about the country's future and about our posterity, not just about yourself? I want to talk to you, not to him.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I guess the most important role model in my heart is Jesus Christ, and then I would say my parents were important role models in my life, and in terms of public policy, I think Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Ronald Reagan.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I probably shouldn't take my time this way, but I had a thought this evening, you know, that I think ought to guide a lot of your thinking. Because I'm sitting here thinking that we've got a perfect secretary of the Treasury standing here, we've got a perfect attorney general, we've got a perfect secretary of defense. George Bush is not here, but since he'll say the words you put into his mouth, he'd probably make a perfect press secretary.
I've got to tell you, I've got to tell you, I got to tell you, though, you want somebody who's going to be able to go out and champion the things we believe, not speaking from a prompter but speaking from their heart and in a way that will move the hearts of the American people, then you better look hard at the one remaining person I haven't talked about, because that's what you'll get from Alan Keyes, and that's what we need right now, somebody who won't equivocate, who will stand before the American people and make it clear, we must address the moral crisis of this country's life as our top priority in every area of our life to restore our self-discipline and our claim to liberty.
That's the message we need to carry into the years ahead, and we can win with that message alone.
I do want folks to remember one thing that we so often talk to as if these elections are all about us and about our selfish agendas and what we're going to get out of it. I think it's very important to remember that as citizens, we hold in our hands the fate and future of this country, for our own sakes, but also the sake of our posterity in the future.
We may not have an economic crisis today, we may not have (inaudible) wars and international problems. But all I have to do is say the name Bill Clinton, and you are reminded that we are in the midst of the greatest moral crisis this nation has ever seen.
And I think it's time as citizens we took responsibility for addressing those issues like abortion and what's happening to our families that are destroying the heart and conscience of America and have fomented this crisis.
I think that's our top priority to deal with in the years ahead, and I would like to lead this country in articulating and dealing with those issues that are undermining our hope of liberty for the future. We can do it if we're serious enough to take it on now.
. . .
KEYES: For many years, my slogan on Social Security has been simple and clear. We've got to keep the promises we've made, because folks who have paid into the system in good faith ought to be able to expect that they will get the benefits that they have been promised. And we ought to guarantee that, even if we have to pay for it out of general revenue.
But in order to make this system solvent, in order to put it back where it belongs, we have to stop making promises we can't keep. And one promise we can't keep is the promise that the government is going to manage the money that people earn over the course of their lifetimes better than the people who earn that money.
We go out and work for it, we make the sacrifices, we have the sense to support ourselves, then we ought to be trusted to invest that money in ways that will produce the best return for us and our family.
I think that that is the principle that we must implement, not only, by the way, in Social Security. It's time we stopped thanking politicians when they make these promises that they're going to let us have a little bit more control of our own money.
It's time we demanded back control of every last cent of all our money that we earn. That's the way this country was when it was founded, and we did not have, for instance, an income tax system that gives the government a preemptive claim to a certain percentage of our income.
I think that we have to have a Social Security system that's based on giving the people who earn the money supervision over how it's invested, and I think in that context we also need to move forward, abolish the income tax, and return to the original Constitution of America, from the government with tariffs, duties, and excise taxes. sales taxes. And in that way we will restore control of our money and our economy to the people.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I think we have to be very wary of solutions that suggest to us that we ought to turn the health care system somehow over to government down (ph) the nation, allowances and control.
In every area of our life where we've followed that path, we've gotten into trouble, starting, for instance, with our schools and education. We certainly don't want to replicate that pattern in terms of health care.
I think we need to move in directions that will put power and control back in the hands of individual consumers and decision makers. That includes medical savings accounts, that includes voucherizing big parts of the government-sponsored program so that individuals have a stake in making the right decisions, going to providers that will provide them service they want at a price that they consider affordable.
That's what we do in every other walk of life. Imagine that we bought cars the way we buy health care, walking into the store, never looking at the price sticker, never understanding the relationship between what we're paying and the value we're getting, and then sending something off to a third party to pay for it for us.
We need to empower consumers to play their proper role in policing the relationship between price and value. And to do that, we need to give them back control over their medical spending dollars.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I think to me the example of role model is very easy. My role model would be Clarence Thomas. I think he represents an adherence to a proper understanding, both of the basis in principle of the Constitution, respect for the transcendent law that we have to respect in our exercise of our rights.
And also he does have something that I guess I will have as a litmus test for my judges. I will want to make sure that they read the Constitution, because it does-for instance, you-I think they ought to read it. And one litmus test will be, pay attention to what's in it and don't pretend that something's not in it that's there.
For instance, separation of church and state is nowhere in the Constitution, so why do they talk about it as if it is? And yet in the Constitution, it does require-hold it-it does require-it does require, as the overall statement of our goal, to secure the blessings of liberty, it says, to ourselves and our posterity.
Somebody tell me how they can pretend that killing babies in the womb, killing our future in the womb, respects the obligation to secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity. I want to make sure we'll have judges who will read the Constitution according to its terms and respect it according to the basic principles of justice and decency articulated in our great Declaration of Independence.
And if they won't do that, they won't get an appointment from a President Keyes.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I want to be careful about what you mean by that, because I think that we obviously are a global power, we have interests all over the world. And I think that in many regions of the world, we do have forces deployed where their deployment makes a definite contribution to regional peace and stability and to the defense of our own interests.
So I wouldn't want to carelessly suggest that we ought to be withdrawing those forces, be it from Korea or from Europe or elsewhere, where I think that they do serve a useful purpose in both maintaining our presence and defending our interests.
On the other hand, I think our principle ought to be very clear. It ought to be that when we are using those forces, deploying them, it serves our interests, not some abstract agenda of globalism, global sovereignty, global left-wing interventionism.
That's what we've gotten from the Clinton administration, including what it seems to me was a clearly unconstitutional undeclared war in Kosovo in violation of fundamental principles against international aggression, in which we were, in fact, not serving our national interests but serving abstract ideas of globalism for which American people should not be asked to die.
And I think that's very clear, and that would be the premise of Keyes administration. It would be based on an understanding that we serve the national interests of our people. Part of that interest is our leadership in the world, it is our defense of human rights around the world, it is our maintenance and sustenance of people's commitment to self-government around the world.
But it ought to be a clear commitment to our national interest first, not to globalism and internationalism.
. . .
KEYES: I think it's very important that we send a strong and unequivocal message to the Russian government that we are not going to tolerate idly the abuses that are taking place in Chechnya. No business as usual, no trade business as usual, no aid business as usual, no loans that are going to go through the government.
I think we ought to be taking the same policy toward the Russians on account of their abuses in Chechnya that I believe we should be taking toward the Communist Chinese dictators on account of their abuses in Communist China. We should be willing, not to dictate what other people do, but to control our own actions and relationships in a way that is compatible with our principles.
Second point, though, that we shouldn't miss, let us not pretend that we can afford to step back from this situation and just let Russia go any way it pleases. It's still, as it has always been the case in Europe, constitutes a very important element. If it goes very bad, it could prove very dangerous to the rest of Europe and to our interests.
That means that we should be working to open up avenues of cooperation and support so that we can work with the decent Russian people in order to begin to replace the regime of gangsterism and kleptocracy.
We understood how to do this years ago when we had to work around and through governments that were oppressing their people. But we did not wish to abandon those people to the not-so-tender mercies of their governments. It is that kind of creative work with the people of Russia that we need now to redevelop in our policy so that we will develop an alternative to the gangsterism, and not let Russia go in a direction that could destabilize the whole of Europe.
. . .
KEYES: I don't think there's anybody in the country who would disagree with the notion that we ought to be doing our utmost to make sure that criminals don't get guns, and that those who use guns have the book thrown at them, so that we will not have felons making use of these weapons against innocent citizens.
But you and I both know that that's not the issue in the gun control debate. The issue is whether or not we're going to respect the fundamental right in the Constitution, and fear is being fomented now, not about the criminal element, but about ourselves.
We should no longer be trusted with guns. Why? Because we're not good enough to be free, I suppose. We no longer have the self- discipline, the character, the integrity necessary to have access to the means of self-defense without killing ourselves and each other in some murderous fashion.
That, by the way, is not a question about guns, it's a question about our estimate of our own character, self-discipline, and decency. And I think it's time we began to understand, the answer is not gun control any more than it's condoms and other forms of external control.
The answer is self-control, and the basis of self-control is conscience, and the basis of conscience is the acknowledgment that our founders put in the very foundation stone of this nation's life, that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God.
You want conscience back in America? Put that principle back in our lives and in our hearts.
. . .
KEYES: If there were a fifth podium on this stage, and G.W. Bush was behind it, I don't know that I'd address a single question to G.W. Bush. I'd go on doing what I do anyway, because I don't think this election is about talking to G.W. Bush. He doesn't want to talk to anybody else.
All right. I think this election is about talking to the American people and being honest with them, not lying to them. It's time we got past this gutless happy-face approach to education that doesn't want to admit the truth. G.W. Bush says we're not slouching toward Gomorrah. He may be right, you know. We're not slouching toward Gomorrah, we're galloping toward Gommorah.
I think we're doing more than that, we're probably by now galloping around the town square in Gommorah. And if we don't do something about it, if we don't do something about it, we will have lost the moral foundations that sustain our liberty.
And we need candidates who aren't so interested in pandering for their votes, for your votes, that they're only willing to look you in the eye and speak the truth. The question of the last several years has not been about Bill Clinton's character or just the government's character or leaders' character, it's about your character and about how much longer you're going to tolerate the destruction of every decent principle of American life, starting with the principle that ought to guarantee the life of our children in the womb.
When are you going to wake up? When are you going to care enough about the future to stop listening to all these selfish appeals and start acting like the citizens you're supposed to be, caring about the country's future and about our posterity, not just about yourself? I want to talk to you, not to him.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I guess the most important role model in my heart is Jesus Christ, and then I would say my parents were important role models in my life, and in terms of public policy, I think Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Ronald Reagan.
. . .
KEYES: Well, I probably shouldn't take my time this way, but I had a thought this evening, you know, that I think ought to guide a lot of your thinking. Because I'm sitting here thinking that we've got a perfect secretary of the Treasury standing here, we've got a perfect attorney general, we've got a perfect secretary of defense. George Bush is not here, but since he'll say the words you put into his mouth, he'd probably make a perfect press secretary.
I've got to tell you, I've got to tell you, I got to tell you, though, you want somebody who's going to be able to go out and champion the things we believe, not speaking from a prompter but speaking from their heart and in a way that will move the hearts of the American people, then you better look hard at the one remaining person I haven't talked about, because that's what you'll get from Alan Keyes, and that's what we need right now, somebody who won't equivocate, who will stand before the American people and make it clear, we must address the moral crisis of this country's life as our top priority in every area of our life to restore our self-discipline and our claim to liberty.
That's the message we need to carry into the years ahead, and we can win with that message alone.