Alan Keyes
February 28, 2000

I think that this is the first time I have given a speech across an empty orchestra pit. To make me feel at home, you should have filled it up with people. This audience doesn't know--we are actually alluding to one of my more unique experiences during the campaign. [the mosh pit]

Thank you all for coming. I want to spend the next several minutes talking to you about the state and situation of our country, and the challenge that we face in the course of this election year. I have to apologize in advance, because part of what I am going to say obviously isn't going to be, I think, all that pleasant to hear. But I think that it is important, nonetheless, that we reflect on it, as it will help us to understand the real responsibility and challenge that we are faced with in this election.

I think that, if you look back over the course of the last several years, part of the job I have to do as I go around the country these days has been made a lot easier by the contributions of our present chief executive in the White House. Hard to believe, though it may be, he spent the last several years doing me a great favor, since he has by his actions allowed me to cut about half an hour from my statement. I used to have to spend a long time not only developing the fact that we were in the midst of a moral crisis, but then convincing folks that it is politically relevant and could have a damaging effect on our political institutions. Thanks to William Jefferson Clinton, I no longer have to make that case. He has, in fact, done it in a way that is far beyond, as Lincoln said, my poor power to add or to detract. And I think that it doesn't require much convincing.

But that doesn't mean anything, at all, about what is going to happen in the election this fall. And I say that emphatically, because I think that it is something that Republicans around this country need to understand, and many of them do not. If you look back over the record of the last several years, without doubt we have been through the most shameless example of a lack of integrity, of a failure of moral stewardship, by an individual or a party, in the history of our country. Never before have we seen the White House taken to such depths, and never before have we seen a party willing to tolerate it as the Democrats have.

And, just as it meant plummeting personal ratings for the president, so it means an automatic victory for the Republicans in the fall. I'm tempted to say, "Gotcha," on that one. But, see, it didn't, did it? Why not?

There are many explanations, many of them trying to point the finger at the American people, and conclude as to our depravity and the love we have for the shameless lack of integrity that we saw in the last several years. But that I do not believe is true. What I do believe happened is that the Republicans in the Congress of the United States, whose job it ought to have been to drive home the point of that moral failure to the American people, utterly failed in their task of leadership. They did not get the job done.

Now, as we approach the fall, election we need to reflect on that failure. Because it ought to instruct us that there is nothing whatsoever automatic about the translation of that moral corruption and failure and lack of integrity on the part of the Democrats--there is nothing automatic about translating it into some kind of political result in the fall elections. Especially not in the context of the situation we find ourselves in right now.

I believe, and this is just on the basis of my own cursory little thinking about it as I look back over the course of this century, for instance. And I understand that there is actually a professor at American University who has done a systematic review on this basis, and come to something of the same conclusion. But anyway you look back over the course of the century--I am hard put to find an example of an election in which the country was enjoying prosperity and the American people handed the White House from one party to another. It is just not something we do. Apparently, if we are enjoying pretty good economic times, we are well disposed to be congenial about handing power back to folks, even if they were just warming the seat at the time the good things happened.

Now, of course, Clinton was warming the seat in the sense that we wouldn't want to reflect on, but I think, nonetheless, Americans might be disposed to continue with politics as usual. And finding no particular fault with their own circumstances, knowing that all the politicians, when they claim credit for those circumstances are lying--see, we all know this. Whether it is Republicans or Democrats who stand up and say, "We are the ones who caused this prosperity," somewhere in our heart of hearts we Americans know that either party is lying when it says that. Because it is the American people who are responsible for the strength and prosperity of this economy, not America's politicians.

That said, at the very least they won't hold it against the party in power in the White House, and at most, they are probably willing to spread a little good will all around and let 'em stay there. We Republicans had the advantage of that in 1988. After some good Reagan years, folks were kind of disposed to hand the White House off whatever Republican came along. They handed it to George Bush, Sr. He had 80% approval ratings the day he stepped into office. Now, I think we all know that had nothing to do with him. That had to do with the pent-up good feeling America had about itself during the Reagan years.

And all things considered, it would be quite possible, I think, for the Democrats in the fall to run a campaign just reminding Americans of how well off they are, asking them whether there is any good reason why they would want to change stewards at this point, and my guess is that they will answer, "No, there is not."

I don't know whether most Republicans have reflected on this reality or not, but they ought to. We have a tough fight ahead of us. It is very likely that we will lose that battle, and all the historic precedents are against us on this. So, we go into the fall faced with a situation where the good times for our country, for which we must thank God, become difficult political prospects for the party not in power in the White House. And that would all be quite correct, and it would mean it was very unlikely, however valiantly we fought, that we would pull this one out, except for one thing. That for all the economy is not doing too badly, and the world is still relatively at peace--and that, by the way, in spite of the treachery and betrayals and incompetence of the Clinton administration. None of those chickens from their ineffective foreign policy and their tolerance for the decline of our military, and their betrayal of our national security secrets to the communist Chinese, none of those things are actually going to come home to us before November. Within the course of the next few years, my guess is that we will suffer egregious consequences, but not right now.

So, good economy, world reasonably at peace--Democrats waltz to victory. Except for the fact that they have this huge vulnerability on their moral flank. Except for the fact that they put this country through the most shameful episode of its history. Except for the fact that many Americans feel the grief of that shame, though they are not quite sure why it should translate into a political result.

The question I think that faces Republicans is how we are going to convince them that, in fact, it does require a political change. I think that the only way we can do it is to understand the moral crisis of the presidency in the last couple of years in the context of the moral crisis of our country. I said it time and again during the whole impeachment business, that we were not dealing with the problems of one man, or one administration. That the question we needed to ask was not what Bill Clinton had done or failed to do, but how on earth, by the judgment of the American people, he became President of the United States in the first place.

And that question is not a question about Bill Clinton. It is a question about us. It is a question about the American people, and what kind of people we are today. It's a question about our character. About our judgment. About our conscience, and our sense of responsibility.

Bill Clinton came to us and he said, "It's the economy, stupid." And now you can look around you and the economy is working fine, but do most of us feel that the country is working fine? Do we feel it in the face of what is happening in our families, and in our schools? Do we feel it in the face of what has happened to the standards of public integrity in our lives as citizens?

I think, in fact, that this period of prosperity, far from confirming that we are in good shape, simply gives us the leisure to contemplate the truth. And that truth is disturbing. That truth is dangerous. Because as we look back over the course of this century, a century of horrors, and a century of hope; a century of great tragedies and great achievement--but in the midst of it all, what do we find? We find that time and again America has gone through periods of great testing, times when we could not be saved by our military might, because our military might was precisely what was in question. When we could not be saved by our economic might, because our economic condition was exactly what lay in ruins.

In the Depression, in the challenge at the beginning of the great world wars, it was not our material circumstances that saved the day. It was the fact that as a people we could draw on a moral heritage that gave us the faith and the courage and the will to rally our forces even in the face of challenge and defeat; to hold on to our liberty even in the face of economic depression; to resist the totalitarian temptation that overtook many of the countries of the West; and to emerge as the champion of liberty through the longest and darkest struggle against tyranny that the world has yet known. And we did not do it, in those times of challenge, because of our material strength. We did it in the face of relative material weakness, because of our moral heritage and beliefs.

That means that the Democrats and Bill Clinton have assaulted and squandered something far more precious to us than our material condition. For, in the good times and the bad, it has been our faith, it has been our moral and spiritual strength, that got us through.

Now that we have squandered it, what happens when the crisis hits? As surely it must come again, for human affairs always present some new time of trial and testing. I don't know exactly what form it will take, though it does seem to me that after many years of trying, we probably will succeed in building the communist Chinese into a formidable military adversary.

Well, you know, we are doing the best we can. We are, by virtue of the Clinton Administration's leadership, providing them with capital, with technology, and with those military secrets which were, of course, the secret of our own strength. And I have no reason to believe, given what they have demonstrated in the course of their history, that the Chinese will be slow about implementing the gifts that we have given them. So, I would expect that, within the next five years or so, they will try to make good on their bluster about Taiwan in order to test our resolve.

As a people, we will surely be faced with challenges of this kind. How are we going to meet them, in the years ahead? Do the episodes of the past several years suggest that we still have the moral resolve to face such crises in the world, when it was clear that our leadership lacked the moral resolve to deal with a crisis of turpitude even in our own government?

I think we have every reason to doubt ourselves, and in fact, I know for a fact that we do doubt ourselves. For I look around the landscape of American life, and I see in every area that we are surrendering more and more of our liberty to an ever-expanding government power. A power that is claiming control over our money, and over our schools, and over more and more of the affairs of our lives. And on what argument do they approach us for this surrender? On what argument do they come in order to substitute government power for our judgment, and our responsibility, and our role as a self-governing people? Well, it's always the same. Whether you look at the money, where they can't rely on us--because, if they do, the babies will starve, and the elderly won't be taken care of, and all the needs of the society will just go begging, because we are no longer a people to be trusted to meet our own responsibilities, apart from the coercive power and programs of the government.

The same is true even of our schools. We have abdicated what ought to be the leadership role of parents in the lives of their children, in order wholesale to turn education over to the government power, forgetting, I suppose, that education shapes the consciousness of citizens. And do you really think that a government dominated education is going to shape citizens capable of dominating their government? I doubt it.

And, of course, we have surrendered, and we are being called upon to surrender even more, our access to the means of self-defense, to those "terrible" weapons that do so much destruction, according to the papers. The way they talk about them, you would think that there are guns, rifles, and automatic weapons strolling the streets of our city, randomly killing folks. "We must stop the scourge of these uncontrolled weapons!"

And, of course, it is absurd, isn't it? Because we know good and well that these are not demonic things, possessed of some kind of life and will. They are mere dead instruments, no more portentous with evil than the hearts of the people who make use of them.

But why is it, though, that coming forward with these arguments for gun control or whatever, they are pretty successful so far? And they promise to be more successful still, until finally the whole meaning and intent of the Second Amendment will be completely lost. Why are we so willing to believe that we are no longer a people capable of meeting the responsibilities, bearing the obligations, or possessing the powers and rights of a free people?

I believe that all these issues, including those that we agitate with budget and everything else, all of them are a reflection of our lack of moral confidence. We are a people who no longer truly believe in our own decency, in our own moral capacity.

And so when our leaders come to us and tell us, "Well, if you want safety, you are going to have to give up your rights. If you want security, you are going to have to give up your rights. If you want good schools, you are going to have to give up your leadership. If you want a decent and humane and compassionate society, then you are going to have to give up control of your money," we just sit there, with our mouths gaping open, and we nod and say, "Well, yeah, I guess they're right." But why would we think so?

Because what they are telling us is a reflection on us. Those approaches to policy which concentrate more and more power in government's hands are actually a commentary on our own moral decency, our own moral character. And we are accepting the notion that we are no longer fit for freedom, that we are no longer good enough to be free.

And I wonder--because I ought, of course, to launch into something that suggests this is not true. But are we sure? Because I look at the situation in our country right now, and I see these people playing on the notion that if we have guns, for instance, we are all going to be wandering the street killing each other, because we have no sense of responsibility, compassion, restraint, decency, justice. Why should we believe that we are a people likely to go about killing innocent folks in the streets?

Could it be because we are a people quite willing to tolerate the killing of innocent children in the womb?

The sad truth is that we have already surrendered the premise of our good character and our decency. We have surrendered it along with the principle of our claim to rights and liberty. Both these things are gone.

And I sometimes marvel. I guess it is one of those things that is like the physics law about the conservation of momentum--that which is in motion tends to remain in motion for a while. And so we go through the motions of our freedom, even though we have already given up that which is the substantive foundation and basis for our liberty. It's gone. We have lived for several decades now in the shadow of the lie that has replaced those self-evident truths with which our nation began.

In one respect, you can see that in the consequences of our abdication in education--where, as a result of the fact that we surrendered to this government power, and then had judges come along with specious doctrines that required that we separate the educational endeavor dominated by the government from any sense of faith in God, or acknowledgment of His will, we accepted all of this. And with what result?

Well, it is pretty clear. When the country was founded, our Founders articulated--in letters written too large to be missed on the first page of our nation's independent life--the words that summarize the fundamental principle of all our claim to rights, and self-government, and liberty: "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."

We hear the words. I'm sure they are still familiar to most of us. Sometimes I wonder about that, though. They are not approached in the schools with nearly the same consistency and reverence that they used to be. And there is a good reason why. Because at one level, given what we have allowed to happen in the schools, the words that I just spoke, in the context of our present government-dominated system, are gibberish. They are meaningless gibberish. After all, what can it mean to get rights from a Creator whose name we cannot speak, and whose authority we know longer acknowledge as a people? Whatever may be the case in the hearts of some of you and me, what is true in our schools and in our classrooms all over this country is that God has been banished, and His authority is no longer in any sense reflected in the curriculum.

And not only have we abandoned the principle that makes us free. We have substituted for it an ideology that returns us to the bad old days before that principle revealed to us the true meaning of justice. For, of course, by that principle, the weak, the helpless, the powerless, the poor, the uneducated, the disadvantaged--all these classes of human beings, whatever background or condition they may be in--can, nonetheless, lay claim to a fundamental dignity and basic rights that must and ought to be respected by every human power and agency there is. Because they are based not upon human power or choice, but upon the choice of the Almighty God. This was the wonderful, Providential insight with which this nation began, refuting all the centuries of oppression that had come before this new beginning.

And in all those centuries, what was the principle that ultimately underlay every form of government? Why, the simple principle that might makes right. If I have the power, I have the right. If I have the absolute power, I have the absolute right. And whatever fancy words it was dressed up in, this was, by and large, the basis for most governments, most places, most of the time. It was an assertion that had to be tested on battlefields periodically. And those who ended up winning by fire and sword could then claim the favor of whatever god or gods they worshipped. And the power of the sword became the divine right of kings, and established a foundation for the claims of absolute despotism and absolute oppression.

It was the philosophies that our Founders understood, and translated into practical form, that took that appeal to heaven, and made it instead the basis for a claim to human liberty, and dignity, and rights, and justice. And we live in a land that has been shaped by the consequences of that insight.

But now, in our schools, there is a different ideology. We don't teach it in the civics courses--I don't know what we do teach in the civics courses. But we teach it in the science classes now. And it masquerades as science, though it is taught as indoctrination. Because last time I looked, you can question science. Is there any scientific question that no one is permitted to question? The questions aren't likely to work in some cases, but in other cases, the fact that you are willing to question certain basic assumptions has actually--I mean, the questions that Einstein was willing to raise about Newtonian physics actually created the world in which we live. And, so, science is always open to questions. Skepticism is the hallmark of the scientist's mind: always question the theory in light of the facts.

There is only one so-called scientific theory where one is not allowed to do that. And where our children are not to be exposed to any alternative, except the one that has been placed before them in this dogmatic fashion. And that is the ideology of evolution.

But why would they insist upon it in this way? I think that they insist upon it because it represents the total subversion of the major premise of our way of life. After all, what would we do with the Declaration of Independence if we had to revise it in order to reflect the dogma that is now, quite seriously, taught to our young people and which shapes their consciousness? This is, by virtue of the claims of science, what they know believe about themselves. You do realize this, don't you?

And what is it? Well, I guess we would have to rewrite the Declaration like this. First, we'd have to take out that inconvenient reference to truth, since obviously the purpose of evolution is to explain a world that looks as if an intelligent being created it in such a way as to dispense with the need for any reference to such an intelligent cause. I've always wondered, though. Why go to all that trouble? Do we go to all that trouble in the rest of science to explain an effect by virtue of a cause that is not commensurate with the effect? Usually you look for a commensurate cause. In this particular case, though, it is the one area of so-called science where we don't look for a commensurate cause. We actually want to look for a cause that is not commensurate with the effect. That's amazing. But it is what we try to do.

Well, they go to all this trouble. But having dispensed with the idea of an intelligent Creator, that does raise serious questions about the possibility of truth--doesn't it?--since truth does imply a kind of intelligent cohesion which could ultimately be known and understood. Well, we discard that idea. And so I guess we would have to restate it as, "We hold these ideas to be more or less familiar to everybody, though no longer necessarily accepted by people, that all of us have more or less evolved to about the same point, and that, as a consequence of this evolutionary process, we, all of us, are equally inclined to whine a lot about our rights."

Sad to say, even if one could state the sort of "Evolutionary Declaration" principles with somewhat greater respect, there would still be a problem. What authority does the evolution process have, anyway? Why should one care about its results? Is there any particular reason to respect those results? If evolution says that we've more or less reached the same point, and I say, "No, we haven't, because you reached the point without the gun, and I reached the point with the gun." Doesn't that then put us in a position where this whole evolution thing doesn't matter? Where equality is no longer of any importance? And isn't it the case that the underlying premise of evolution anyway--crudely stated, I know, but still I think reasonably accurate--is the survival of the fittest? Isn't it?

And what is the survival of the fittest? It is the domination of the stronger over the weaker, in terms of the circumstances in which both find themselves. And do we express much regret, in terms of evolutionary science, for those weaklings who are now extinguished? No, we don't. They are extinct because they were not able to cope. And not being able to cope, why should we shed too many tears about their passing. We might look at them with curiosity, and interest. But beyond that, why do we care?

See, the interesting thing about that doctrine is that, actually, dressed up in fancy scientific duds, it turns out to be, for human affairs, the same brutal, ugly principle that in any case governed all along: might makes right. And we need not shed a tear of concern for the hindmost, for justice cares only for the strong.

I point all this out not only because it is an interesting theory, but because this is what our children learn. And if we don't understand what we are doing, let me put it clearly--we have thrown out the principle of justice on which our nation was founded, that promises justice to the weak as well as to the strong. And we have substituted for it an ideology that offers no sympathy for the weak, and confirms the domination of the strong. We have destroyed in the schools, and therefore in the heart and consciousness of our children, already, the principle without which our whole way of life is a meaningless sham.

And don't think, either, that this is just some academic treatise. "What on earth is a politician doing talking about all of this stuff?" I'll tell you what. Because the major issue that we face as a moral challenge in this country today is a direct reflection of the same abandonment of principle, of the same surrender to the age-old lie that might makes right. For we see it there, clear as day, in the arguments that are made by the proponents of abortion, who tell us that that child in the womb is rightly subject to its mother's choice, because it is not viable apart from her body, because it is wholly dependent on her physically, because she has it absolutely in her power.

What are we looking at there, if not the claim that absolute power means the absolute right to dispose of the being in your power in any way you choose? It is the same awful, ugly premise of despotism and tyranny and slavery and conquest and oppression that has, sadly, consigned so many human beings to oppression and to death throughout the centuries of mankind's existence.

And here we are, a people supposed to be governed by a principle that respects the dignity of all, whatever their weakness or strength, embracing now the lie that in fact once again surrenders the very heart of our civilization to the principle that might makes right, that the one who has the power has the right to destroy the lives of those within his power.

And we do it, where? Well, in this particular case, we harden the hearts of those who ought to be the prime nurturers of our most compassionate instincts, the first experience of that natural love and affection which ought to be the paradigm for all our human relations. Having turned the heart of motherhood into a heart of stone, how could we be surprised if that heart sinks to the depths of depravity?

See, we've already done it. The foundations of our way of life are already all fissured and broken up and about to collapse utterly. This ought to, if you really understand it, explain to folks why it is that I am still here. Because this is a question. I do get that look now, from particularly these media types in the national media. They'll encounter me again and look at me the way that people look at folks in some of these movies where one character has poisoned the other, and they are sitting there, sipping at the tea, waiting for the effects to take hold. And they have that kind of quizzical, "when are you going to die?" look in their eye.

And so there are many, in a political sense, looking at my campaign and saying, "Why are you still here? Haven't we poisoned you sufficiently to kill you yet?" And they wonder why. But I'll tell you why. If you know that the house is afire, and you are trying to rouse the folks within the house, you shout, "Fire, fire." And somebody who wants to stay asleep shouts out the window, "Shut up, I'm trying to sleep." And somebody else who is in the midst of a hearty dinner shouts, "Shut up, we're trying to eat." And somebody else, who is in the midst of other indulgences says, "Shut up, don't disturb us anymore." And so while they are pursuing their food and their lust and their sleep, you're still shouting "fire," because the house is burning down. And they are all wondering, "Why is that man still out there? Why is he still trying to point out to us? Why is he still trying to point out to us that our house is aflame, and that our foundations are in danger?"

Could it be, that despite the fact that it seems that so many are indifferent, I still believe that even among the indifferent there are those decent Americans who deserve a better fate than the fate that is in store for them as this republic ends?

No one, I think, really had--or few people had--the imagination to foresee the horrors of the 20th century. Given our experience of those horrors, we have less excuse for not realizing that human power unconstrained by a principle of conscience that protects weak as well as strong human beings is power that will be abused, without limit, and without constraint, in ways that we can barely imagine, even though we have experienced them. And then you add to this the fact that our science and technology equip us with a power that even the most evil will did not possess in the 20th century, and you realize that for all our glee, and all our happy-face notions about it, if we let slip that principle of conscience which keeps us at bay, which holds us back from the brink of that demonic evil which we know to be one aspect of our humanity--if we surrender it, the power with which we arm ourselves now, as a result of our scientific knowledge, is a power that not only threatens our physical existence; it is a power that in every respect threatens our very nature itself.

We ought to know that with that kind of power in our hands, and no principle of conscience to constrain our use of it, the horrors that could await us in the 21st century will make the 20th look like a dress rehearsal for evil.

And we Americans ought not to underestimate our importance in that choice. We have stood as the key ingredient that three times in this century helped to beat back the shadow of evil and tyranny and oppression. Without us, the history of the 20th century would have been a history of successful tyranny, and successful horror, and successful domination of the world by wills that had no respect whatsoever for the dignity of our common humanity.

We made the difference. And we ought to understand that if that experience suggests our roll, we have a responsibility that, as we enter the 21st century, is weightier still. For we must contemplate what shall be the consequences if, in this new century, this new millennium, as it begins, we are no longer fighting the shadow of evil, but casting it ourselves.

And these are the choices we face. We have already turned our back on the principle of our moral decency. We have already adopted the judgments and policies that embrace the hard-hearted worship of power and strength as a substitute for justice. Why do we think we shall be immune to the corruption that that evil principle has worked on every heart, in every nation, in the history of the world? We are not immune.

And that is why I think it is vitally important that we understand the real nature of the challenge we face right now. How do we get back to the solid ground of our moral integrity? I think it is quite clear. We must renew our allegiance to the fundamental principle, the simple truth, that we have abandoned: that our rights come from God, and must be exercised with respect for the authority of God.

And I know, there are those who are going to say, "Alan, you're a politician. You can't say that. Separation of church and state." And all of these other lies they tell us.

Excuse me. Not a word I've spoken this evening comes from any text except the text of our own common document of freedom. It does accord with my Christian faith. It does accord with my belief in Almighty God. But it also accords with the American creed that is the ground on which every American must stand to claim their rights.

We have let it go. We have let it go. And in letting it go we have not only surrendered our claim to rights, we have surrendered the basis for our confidence that those rights will not be abused. For, you see, the rights that we claim by virtue of the authority of God are rights that we must clearly be understood to exercise with respect for the same authority by virtue of which we claim them. That makes the principle of our liberty in America a self-governing, a self-disciplined principle. A principle that, even as we state it, reveals to us the constraints upon our freedom, warns us against any belief that freedom is about doing whatever you please, doing whatever you can get away with.

It is not so and cannot be so, because the very same authority which grants us the rights in the first place must oversee and command our responsibility in the use of those rights. It is the wonderful balance that has been essential to the progress of our American character in the years since this nation was founded.

And that progress hasn't always been easy. The temptations of licentious abuses and injustice were institutionalized at the very moment the document was written. Slavery, one of the greatest abuses of human dignity, was rampant throughout the land, posing a challenge that even the Founders understood could be the rock on which the whole experiment foundered. And yet, step by painful step, even through the course of the bloodiest war in our history, we clung to those principles that confirm the dignity of each and every human being. We fought out that horror in a way that the Founders did not even anticipate. Until we have come to a day that most of them did not dare dream of, when we stand together, legally at least, without any claims of inequality and racial difference to mar the true identity of our people.

This is something they didn't expect. And it happened, I think, if you look, at our history, because having planted a seed of truth, it was nurtured by the decent heart and consciences and courage of generation after generation of Americans inspired by that truth and encouraged by their faith in Almighty God. They fought the scourge of slavery. They fought for civil rights, and women's rights. They fought that workers would not be abused and exploited. And they continue still to fight. But all encouraged by that simple belief that even if we stand alone, we stand on solid ground if we stand upon that claim of human dignity which comes from the Hand of God.

And now, sad to say, because of our embrace of the abortion doctrine and its consequences, we have turned our back on that principle, dethroned God's authority, and we can't get home again until we have turned around and reclaimed our moral heritage.

I think that the Clinton years have been the warning of what shall be the consequences if we do not act with urgency now. Because I know that it may not have been apparent to all, but people like to pretend that this was all about his sexual foibles. It was really a test to see whether a president could get away with egregious lying and abuses of his office, and whether there was still left in the representatives of the people enough integrity to call him to account. The answer that was given in the last two years was, "No, there is not enough integrity left in our representatives."

I don't know why, even distracted by this temporary prosperity, we should live so easily with that thought. We have no protection, any longer, from the abuses of executive power. The system of checks and balances broke down. Our representatives did not have the courage, because they no longer have the integrity to do what the Constitution requires.

In this last episode it was all about lying about his sexual escapades. What makes us think, though, that in the next it won't be lying about his political escapades. Today he kills truth, so that tomorrow another may simply kill? That has been the pattern, even in this century. By what hubris do we believe we are immune?

Our loss of integrity, therefore, already exposes us to the loss of liberty, already subverts the integrity of the Constitutional system that requires that we act with courage in defense of our liberty.

And don't pretend that it wasn't about moral things either, because it was. It was about moral things even in the sense, the narrow sense, in which people understand that these days. One of the things that, apparently, according to some people, I suffer from, is that every time I say the word "moral," people think I'm talking about their sex life. We have become so sick and narrow-minded that we do not understand that the word "moral" involves any choice whatsoever between right and wrong, not just the choice to sleep with the wrong person in the wrong way at the wrong time. And when you lose your moral compass in one area, several areas, you have debased your ability to sustain yourself in any kind of independence, because then the people who can manipulate the passions you can no longer control are the people who control you. And this is where we are. We are well down that road already.

How do we get home? We renew our allegiance to our moral principle. We reclaim those rights and responsibilities that are ours. And we begin that process by acknowledging in our leaders and in ourselves the need to oppose the lying doctrines that are corrupting our conscience and destroying our integrity.

That's what I think is the main challenge we face in this election year. It's especially the challenge that Republicans face. Because as I said in the beginning, we're not going to win an election on economic grounds this time; they've got us on that one. Barring some unforeseen disaster between now and November, Republicans can't hope to win this election by making some big economic argument.

I know, they'll say, "Oh, well, we'll promise to do better than they have done. We'll promise to give people more than they have given." But I have a feeling that the American people are still smart enough to hold on to a bird in hand against two promised by G. W. Bush. What do you think?

That being the case, those promises aren't going to stand up. If we are going to win, we are going to have to address the moral challenge of the country. We are going to have to show what I have talked about this evening, in terms of the crisis of our liberty, of which this crisis in the White House was just the example, the epitome. If we can't do that, then we will lose. If we can do it, then we stand a chance of victory.

At this point I should ask for your vote. But instead I'd just ask for your intelligent judgment. Look at the candidates out there. On the one hand, we have John McCain, [one person in audience claps loudly] who has utterly abandoned the moral fight, and who has no moral principles.

Oh, somebody missed that? All right, if somebody in this audience missed it, I'll explain it to you in painful detail. Because I don't care what John McCain says about his record in Arizona or anywhere else. What he did in New Hampshire was reveal to us his pro-abortion heart. And you say, "Alan, you can't see into somebody's heart." That's right, I can't. But I can listen to what they say. And he was asked by a reporter, "If your daughter came to you, she was pregnant, and wanted to have an abortion, what would you say?"

Now, I've got to tell you, that's a very, very interesting question. Because what we say to our children, unless we are the most unnatural parents in the world, comes from our heart. So, if you ask someone, "What would you say to your child?" especially when it comes to a moral issue of public policy--that was exactly the question I kept asking the American people about the impeachment and Bill Clinton. What on earth do those who justified leaving that man in office tell their children today that is decent and honorable? They can't tell them anything. It is one of the greatest tests of probity: "What will you say to your child?"

And what did John McCain tell us? He went through a whole lot of rigmarole about his this's and thats, just the same way the pro-abortion types always do, and then he reached the conclusion that it would be her decision. Well, my friends, call it by whatever name you like, that is the pro-abortion, pro-choice position. And any pro-life individual who votes for John McCain, supports John McCain, whatever else you say about yourself, you have betrayed the cause in which you profess to believe. You have joined those who sacrifice this nation's soul on the alter of its sickening self-indulgence. And it doesn't work.

And that goes so far down the wrong road that I must make it clear here, as I have everywhere else. If John McCain is the Republican nominee, I will not support him. [from crowd: "You're not alone, Alan"] I know I'm not alone. Oh, I know I'm not alone. You don't have to worry about that. The statement I just made will be repeated in sufficient numbers that John McCain wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance of winning a general election. Millions of people like myself have taken the same vow that I have taken. And that is not a vow to some human agency. I stand before Almighty God, and I'll say what I have said for years: I will never again soil my responsibility as a voter by voting for a candidate who turns their back on the fundamental principle of justice by which this nation's freedom lives or dies.

So let us be clear. I think we need to be clear, therefore. And by the way, this isn't the only issue. John McCain shows his lack of any interest, whatsoever, in the moral cause in everything he does. Indifferent to the challenge of homosexuality. Indifferent to the sick influence of music. You name it; he has made it crystal clear. He thinks that the moral conservatives are a bunch of sick fanatics, and so he says, too, in the privacy of his exchanges. We all know this. But leave that aside. He is not a champion who can attack the Democrats on their moral flank of vulnerability, because he doesn't care about those issues.

And then there is G. W. Bush. A nice, decent fellow. Professes to care. But every time I have watched him it has become increasingly clear--he may have the will, I don't know, but he doesn't have the capacity. No, he doesn't. He doesn't know how.

I don't know why we think that people who have not thought about these issues, who have never taken them seriously in their lives, when they come to the time when these are the most serious challenges facing our people, are suddenly going to be able to address them as if they know what they are doing. They don't. And so they make errors. Just as John McCain reveals his pro-abortion heart, so G. W. Bush. He's confronted by Tim Russert, and Tim looks at him and says, "Well, you know, you take this pro-life stance, and the Republican platform doesn't seem to make any exceptions. But you make the rape/incest exceptions. How can you justify that?"

And Bush's response, as I recall it, was to look him in the eye and say, "Well, you know, I know that's a problem. I know I can't justify it. But that's just how I feel. That's the stand I take." And I watched as any credibility that this man has in the debate or battle with our pro-abortion opponents goes down the drain. Because when all is said and done, my friends, if principle doesn't matter; if common sense doesn't matter; if rationality doesn't matter; if, therefore, the careful work one does to present the case as I have done tonight, starting with the principles of our common life and justice, and showing how those principles are incompatible with any support for abortion; looking at the Constitution and asking whether or not it is compatible with the overall aspiration "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity"--how does it secure the blessings of liberty to our posterity, to those generations yet unborn, to kill them, aborting them in the womb? It can't be.

But the only way those arguments have any validity is if folks do have to take logic and common sense and reason seriously. So, if I stand there and say, "Well, I know this doesn't make any sense but that's my position." What is to keep Al Gore from saying, "Right, Alan, I know the pro-abortion position doesn't make any sense, but that's my position"? And then we are both just kind of irrationally battling it out and nobody is the better. No way to heal. No way to resolve the issues of principle. No way to sustain this nation's respect for its moral identity and ideas.

It doesn't work. And somebody who is willing to take such a stand reveals right there--he does not know how to make the case. He does not know how to avoid the pitfalls that will destroy him as he makes the case. And so send him out if you will as your champion, he will go down to defeat. And in the process he will be used and abused by the media to discredit the cause in which he claims to believe. No, this is not the time to send out a weak person, to send out one who can't make the case. We need the best articulation we can find of the moral challenge that confronts this country.

I have been out here a while. I've done the debates and this and that and the other. I just leave it to people: make your own judgment about that. I'm willing to stand there, and stand here, make the case as best I can, and then let people judge. If they have any fairness or justice in their judgment, I'll sleep peacefully with the prospect of the result.

But if they don't, I'll still sleep peacefully with the integrity of my own presentation. What will keep me awake at nights is the thought of what this country must become, as we surrender the ground for our moral integrity and prepare a future in which liberty comes to curse itself, because of that lack of integrity.

I know, this is not the usual kind of pandering appeal politicians make, but my friends, I think it is time we grew up as a people. We have, sometimes without meaning to, shouldered some pretty awesome responsibilities in this world. This is one responsibility that we must shoulder, meaning to do it, conscience of the weight of it, serious enough as people to understand that, ordinary as we appear, we hold the fate of human dignity, we hold the destiny of that last, best hope of human kind that this country is supposed to represent, in our hands. As we decide, we shall indeed decide the fate of our world. For by God's providence, we carry a weight in that world unequalled in the history of humankind. Default in that responsibility now, and we do it not only for our children, but for the children and the hopes of all our planet.

Are we up to this? I don't know. But I think that there is only one way in which we can find out. And that is by prayerfully and seriously seeking first within ourselves and then within our land to return our allegiance to the fountainhead of all our hopes: to restore our sense that our rights come from God. And then to move forward, as in our faith in Him we must, not to calculate the victory or to fear the defeat, but to do our duty and to leave the rest in His Almighty hands.

God bless you.