Alan Keyes
November 1995

Thank you. You know, in the course of things last night I was struck--did anybody watch the debate? You all were there, right? Now, in the course of things I was really struck by the fact that Larry King felt it imperative to begin by talking about somebody who wasn't even in the race. Did you notice that? Funny how that is. Now, that is because he and his media buddies have spent so long hyping this possibility. They are so deathly afraid of the thought that we are going to have a conservative Congress and a conservative in the White House that they spent several months trying to convince us that a liberal Democrat could be a Republican just for the purpose of running this year.

Now, you have to know, you and I were, of course, smart enough to figure out that agenda. So were many other republicans. But when this person who wasn't in finally withdrew--now, I don't understand how you withdraw when you haven't come in in the first place, but they managed to do this in the media. I did notice one thing, though. I noticed one thing, and today I feel like I have to comment on it, because it tells you something about the media in this country that is not very pleasant, but that you and I need to understand. When General Powell withdrew--or his unwithdrawal, I don't know what it was--they had headlines in the papers where I was, and one of the things they tried to pretend was that somehow or another this withdrawal signified that the Republican Party was somehow exclusionary and that it wouldn't follow the leadership of people if they came from this race or that background.

Now, I think that you and I both understand that this is a slander and defamation against the decent-hearted people of the Republican Party. We know that. We know it. But we know that we live in a country today where, unfortunately, our media friends are into slander and defamation against those of us who stand up for the values on which this country was built, and who mean to fight to defend our families and make this nation strong. We know that.

But I want you to know, just in case their lies and repression haven't gotten the true story to you, I want to report to you that, in point of fact, the grass roots people of the Republican Party will indeed respond to a leader who stands up to speak from the heart what they know in their heart is the truth. And that's why, at meeting after meeting around this country, when they have taken straw polls like this, Alan Keyes' name has ended up in first place, in second place, in third place, in fourth place.

Did you hear about that? No, you did not. Because they have repressed every fact of truth that has to do with this campaign--not because they don't like me, but because they don't like you. And they intend to repress every indication of the truth that this is not a party that follows people based on this background or that heritage. We are a party that will follow our hearts behind those who speak to the principles that we believe in and which brought us into politics in the first place.

And that's why, in place after place, including last weekend--now, I know you all heard of my sixty-percent vote at the California Republican Assembly. I know you heard that. No, you didn't hear about that! Just like you didn't hear about my third place position in Arizona, my second place position in Utah and Virginia, and so forth and so on. Didn't hear about those straw polls, did you? No, that way, they can continue the slander against this party that we are somehow prejudiced against those who stand for our principles. No, we are not. But we are not a party that judges people on the basis of some kind of group participation. That's why we uniformly oppose the injustice of quotas, because we know that discrimination is wrong no matter who's the victim.

I'll tell you something else. The folks around the country have been responding to what I have to say. They are responding to a message--a message that states first and up front and forthrightly what so many others don't want to say, that sees the objective truth about the situation we are, in fact, in today. And in spite of all the hype, and in spite of the action of so many, even in Washington, we've got to understand that the crisis that we face today is not a crisis of government, and it's not a crisis of budget. It's a crisis that's directly related to one fact, and one fact alone, that in the last several decades we have backed away from our support for the marriage-based two-parent family--and as the family falters, America fails. We know it's true. And people are coming forward to back a message that supports, as well, the absolute need not to get involved in all this talk of covenants.

And I'll tell you something, you have to be even a little worried of all this talk of contracts with your government. I'll tell you, I supported every bit of the Contract With America. But I worry when people tell me that the people of this country work from some contract with their government--because, last time I looked, a contract was something made amongst equals. And the government is not supposed to be our equal. It is supposed to be our instrument!

But if we're to make that true, then we're going to have to get back to a country where we understand that the power over this economy, the power over its schools, the power over what's happened to this nation's destiny has to be taken from the bureaucrats and put back in the hands of the people.

Take the power over this nation's economy--you know, the taxing power, the most important power government has. Blackstone wrote that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." And in case you haven't noticed, they've been using the power to tax to destroy our family. And they say, I know, there are people who come before you and they're all gung-ho, "Let's reform the tax system radically," and so forth. I don't want to reform it radically with some new notion. I want to go back to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

When they wrote the Constitution, they wrote it in such a way as to forbid the federal government the income tax. And until we passed the Sixteenth Amendment, there was no income tax at the federal level in this country, because our Founders said it was incompatible with the status of a free people. I stand before you today just as I hope I would have stood in the 19th century--I'm an abolitionist. But this time it's not abolition of slavery for one group of people, it is abolition of tax slavery for all Americans. We must abolish the income tax and reclaim the initiative in this economy's life.

We must, as well, stand forward and declare that we are tired of those who have moved in to usurp control of our schools and our educational system, that we intend to reclaim control of our children's lives from those who have been trying to dominate those lives with government power. And that is why I stand forthrightly for a system based on school choice where the money we spend will follow the choice of parents, not the choice of educrats and bureaucrats and politicians.

You see, it's wonderful, isn't it? Now, I have to tell you, now comes the part where I stop. You see, I could go on like that for a while. Wait a minute, wait a minute. They can all go on like that for a while. You understand? Now, of course, I didn't have a speech writer tell me what to say this time. I didn't pay a hundred thousand dollars for this speech. I didn't pay five cents for it. I did pay a whole lifetime of preparation for it. I did pay that. But I'm up here--when are we going to start to worry about the fact that folks can come up here and push our buttons any time with speeches fabricated at the behest of their dollars, when we don't have the single first idea of what it is that they have in their hearts? You've got to worry about this. But I wonder if you do.

I've been collecting kudos for the debate last night in which I did not participate. Oh no, why do I say I didn't participate? Because if you read the papers this morning, I wasn't even there. I think some of you were there. Was I at the debate last night? Thank you. I'll leave it to others to decide how well or ill I did, but I think it's about time that we send a message to the media and to the American people that we are sick of the repression and sick of the lies, and you can send that message.

But more important, let's get down to it. This election is about all kinds of things, isn't it? I mean, it's about the budget, yeah. It's about the GATT. It's about the reclaiming our sovereignty. It's about opposing the sovereignty of the United Nations. Every single issue you go down, I could have you on your feet because you believe what I believe. But the problem, my friends, is that at the end of the day you're going to have to have a government that decides what the priorities are amongst all those wonderful things that we would like to achieve, and those priorities are going to have to reflect the objective fact. And the objective fact is this: that if we have a welfare problem we're paying billions for, if we have a crime problem we're paying billions trying to address, if we have problems in education, if we have problems in health care, if we have entitlements that are runaway threatening to bankrupt this government, it is all due to one cause, and one cause alone--we are allowing the destruction of the marriage-based family, and we've got to stop. That's the priority.

And when you have folks coming up here--oh, they address this issue, they talk about it. It's number three on the list. It might be number four. I imagine even for one of them it might even be number two. But I stand before you today to say one thing, and one thing alone: you want to save this republic, you want to save freedom for your children, you want to limit the government, you want to lower taxes, you want to end the threat of bankruptcy, then you had better put the families of this country first, first, first! There is nothing more important than that.

Wait. Final lesson. Final thought. And this is where it gets hard. You see, it gets real hard. I've been having people come up to me in the course of the day, all kinds of unlikely people. One fellow--I shan't allude to this too specifically, but he is on the finance committee of one of my opponents--and others wearing all kinds of hats and buttons from my opponents, all come up to me, "You're saying the right thing. You've got the message. You stay out there. This is what this country needs," and so forth and so on, ad infinitum. It reminds me of the passage in the Bible where God is saying to the prophet, "Look, they are putting their hands together for you and they're cheering you on, but they are not putting their words into action." And we all think that's funny, don't we? But I think we ought to stop thinking it's funny. How much time do you think this nation has?

We have already come to a time when we have put on the throne what we never thought we would see--people holding the reins of power right now dedicated to the destruction of our values, dedicated to the Joycelyn Elders approach to sexual responsibility, dedicated to tearing down the family and motherhood. Look at what they did at that conference in Beijing--five genders, and no families. That's what the Clinton administration represents.

And who would ever have thought that such an administration could be elected in the United States? If you don't see the handwriting on the wall, it's late in the day. We don't have time for another administration halfheartedly committed to the things that we believe. We don't have time for another leadership that will decide tomorrow whether or not the things that are destroying this country are important today. We see it all around us: streets filled with blood and violence, and schools filled with fear. And we all know what can be done.

But they keep coming forth. You think that all of that is going to be solved, do you, with some government program? "If we only get the budget right, we will solve those problems. If we only get the taxes right, we'll solve those problems. If we only structure things as hand-block grants back to the states, we'll solve those problems." I like all those ideas. But you and I both know that they will not solve this problem.

If our families are perishing because we are loosing the heart for family life, we will not resolve this issue until we put that heart back together. And after you have seen the families and the violence in the street, ask yourself what would really clean it up. You know what will keep that child in the womb from being killed? A mother that just decides to do what is right and spare its life. You know what will keep the violence in the street from getting out of control? People who don't give in to their passion and their lust and their greed, and instead decide that they will just quite simply do what is right.

But I ask you something: you know, in spite of all the controm and all the chocolates and all the blandishments in the world, what is it in your heart that you know is right? And if you here in this room right now are not willing to consult that heart and do what you know is right, what kind of an example shall we set for the nation when we know that that spirit and that spirit alone will restore our schools, clean up our streets and rebuild the character this nation needs to fulfill its greater destiny? That's up to you. It's come down right now to your choice, to your thought, to your vote.

And I'll tell you something, just as I said to some folks last night. Pat me on the back all you like, I don't want it anymore. Give your applause to someone else. Applaud for the ones you vote for. Applaud for them because they seem to be, in their deluded way, articulating your deluded spirit. If you think that deluded spirit will save this country, then go right ahead. But you and I both know better.

What will save this country is the spirit that founded it. The spirit that took the revolutionaries into war against the greatest military power when they had no chance, that took the abolitionists against slavery against the greatest weight of history, when they had no chance, that took the civil rights workers into marches when they had no chance.

And I want you to know, Bob Dole's person in Wisconsin called me a technical nobody. I'll tell you something. Somewhere in their hearts, somewhere in the history, you search the truth. This was a nation that was built from the ground up, from the wilderness up, from the wastelands up by "technical nobodies." And I think it's about time that you join with me to send them all a message that we may be technical nobodies, but we know who we are! We know who built this country, and we shall reclaim it to build it stronger still!