Radio interview
Alan Keyes on Jan Mickelson in the Morning
September 18, 2007WHO Radio, Iowa
JAN MICKELSON, HOST: Also last night in one of the debates, a new face showed up to debate some of the values issues. Alan Keyes has joined the presidential debate, and he is on our newsmaker line. Alan Keyes, thank you for joining us this morning, sir.
ALAN KEYES: Thank you for having me, Jan. How are you?
MICKELSON: I'm doing great. I should say Ambassador Keyes, because you once were a U.N. ambassador representing this country at that level.
KEYES: Under Ronald Reagan.
MICKELSON: Yes. And you decided this time around that you wanted to participate at the presidential level again. Why?
KEYES: Well, I think that a lot of people have been dissatisfied with the choices presented.
I don't think it's because the people are necessarily bad — though the so-called "top-tier" candidates are definitely bad — but I think there are some good people running at other levels who just haven't succeeded in articulating what is on the hearts of many people, and that is that there is a real crisis of sovereignty and self-government in this country that is rooted in the moral crisis of the country, our abandonment of the principles of our identity.
And that has allowed both the abandonment and the betrayal of our borders, in terms of our security; the abandonment and betrayal of our sovereignty, under the tyranny of judges who are usurping the legislative power of our representatives and really taking away the right of our people on fundamental issues to make the laws; and also understand, we are losing the sense of our own personal sovereignty, in terms of our responsibility for our family life and our control of our own resources.
I think there is a great crisis of self-government in America. Everybody feels it. And yet, our leaders aren't willing to simply say that this is a time of crisis where our people must mobilize to reclaim their role as the sovereign people of the United States.
MICKELSON: Well, don't worry about this, Alan. You're getting all hot and bothered by this. Hillary [Clinton] is here. She will — even if we abandon our families and we don't take care of ourselves and assume that personal responsibility that you're talking about, like people used to do in the old days. We are "more advanced" now. And as long as Hillary is here, as long as the federal government is here, we don't have to be responsible because the federal government will bail us out.
KEYES: Two things are true, Jan. I think what you say, obviously, about the socialist, totalitarian Democrats like Hillary Clinton is true. They are obviously explicit representatives of that future in which we have surrendered our sovereign power — as people did throughout human history before this country was founded — to a little clique of despots who will then govern us, supposedly in our interest, but really for their own power and advantage.
And I wish I could tell you, though, that this is just Hillary Clinton. But the abandonment of our border security, the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the greed of a clique of corporate interests the real sovereignty and security of the United States, that isn't just Hillary. It's not just Democrats.
MICKELSON: Right.
KEYES: It's coming from Republicans, as well. The elite in this country is betraying us, destroying our Constitution, giving up our sovereign rights, and having total contempt for what should be the sovereign role of the people of this country.
I think people are going to have to work, themselves, to get it back.
This is not going to be given them by a godless media, by abortion-minded moneybags who only look for their own profit. If people want to be free, they are going to have to get up and work for it. If they go to AlanKeyes.com, we have come up with a new political model that directly depends on the willingness of the people, themselves, to get active and do the work that's necessary to reclaim this country.
MICKELSON: You mentioned something a few seconds ago about judges usurping the proper role of the legislature. When they do that, and the legislature complies and allows them to get away with it and say, "Well, I guess the only way we can overcome judicial tyranny is to wait until we can elect new guys that we can use to pack the court with judges who will exercise their form of judicial tyranny," what is the proper role in dealing with judicial tyranny?
KEYES: It's very simple, really. All three branches are independent. The executive — the president, the governor — has a responsibility to the constitution of the state or of the national government. If it's the president, it's the national Constitution. He swears an oath to uphold it. If the judges tell him to do something, or if the judges are doing something that is against that Constitution, he has an obligation by his oath to refuse to file their opinion, and to step in and protect the country from the destruction of rights, our constitutional rights.
MICKELSON: What is the way to step in and do that?
KEYES: Look at Jeb Bush. The Jeb Bush situation down in Florida is a good example: Terri Schiavo was being done to death by judicial fiat and murder, and the Florida constitution says a citizen has an unalienable right to life that must be respected. In light of that, the governor should have gone down there, put in that feeding tube, and said that he has the responsibility under the Florida Constitution to defend this woman's life.
That's the kind of thing that needs to be done. The same can be done at the presidential level, using executive power to make sure the executive branch respects the life that is in womb and that represents our constitutional goal of "securing the blessings of liberty to our posterity" — which is to say, those who are not yet born.
The legislatures also have a responsibility, because when the judges overstep their bounds and start dictating the law, the legislature says no, and if the judges don't stop, they should be impeached.
MICKELSON: Here in the state of Iowa, you may know, just a few days ago, a local judge, a district judge, decided to redefine marriage and grant gays marriage licenses. It lasted just a few hours, until the fellow stayed his own order, in order that this could be put into the court system, and the next level of the judiciary should hear the case, rather than the legislature, which had already spoken on the definition of marriage.
The legislature here in Iowa, Democratic-controlled, and the governor, who is a Democrat — by the way, gay marriage is in the Democratic platform here in the state of Iowa, Alan Keyes — they are perfectly happy to watch the judicial tyranny. So what are the rest of us supposed to do, in the short-term and the long-term, to deal with judicial tyranny when the legislature is complicit?
KEYES: Step number one, if the legislature is complicit, people have to rise up, organize, and kick them out. That's what we are here for, and that's why we have the ballot and the vote.
But we're not doing this, because our system has been hijacked by people who tell us we don't have choices, except those who are dictated by a godless media, the mainstream, so-called, media that is mostly the sewage media. Those people are people who say that they don't believe that God has any role in morality, and who therefore are in total opposition to what the American people and most people in Iowa believe. And yet we let these people determine who is going to be a credible candidate.
The people should determine what their choices are, before they make the choice. But there's only one way to do it, and that is to adopt an approach that goes around the godless media, that goes around the money-powers who are trying to control our destiny, and directly empowers the people to not only make the choice, but to make sure they have good choices.
Go to AlanKeyes.com. We are asking people to take a pledge there that they are going to do the work that's necessary to build the steeple with a full army that can make the change in this country. But it will only happen if individuals make a serious promise to do the work and then keep that promise. And we're showing them how.
MICKELSON: Thank you, Alan Keyes. Welcome to the race. It's good to hear the clarity of your thinking again.
KEYES: Thank you very much, Jan. It's always good to steer that clarity with another clear voice. God bless your work.
MICKELSON: Thank you, sir. Bye-bye.
KEYES: Appreciate it. Bye-bye.
MICKELSON: In case you are wondering, there is a really interesting quote. This was from the first inaugural address of Lincoln. I'm not a great Lincoln fan. However, he said something on the very subject that Alan Keyes was addressing just a second ago.
He said:
"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government.
"And while it is obviously possible that such decisions may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
"At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed (that is, said as a standard, not repaired) by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal (that is, the court)."
That is a great description of the sorry mess that Alan Keyes was just describing just a few moments ago.
ALAN KEYES: Thank you for having me, Jan. How are you?
MICKELSON: I'm doing great. I should say Ambassador Keyes, because you once were a U.N. ambassador representing this country at that level.
KEYES: Under Ronald Reagan.
MICKELSON: Yes. And you decided this time around that you wanted to participate at the presidential level again. Why?
KEYES: Well, I think that a lot of people have been dissatisfied with the choices presented.
I don't think it's because the people are necessarily bad — though the so-called "top-tier" candidates are definitely bad — but I think there are some good people running at other levels who just haven't succeeded in articulating what is on the hearts of many people, and that is that there is a real crisis of sovereignty and self-government in this country that is rooted in the moral crisis of the country, our abandonment of the principles of our identity.
And that has allowed both the abandonment and the betrayal of our borders, in terms of our security; the abandonment and betrayal of our sovereignty, under the tyranny of judges who are usurping the legislative power of our representatives and really taking away the right of our people on fundamental issues to make the laws; and also understand, we are losing the sense of our own personal sovereignty, in terms of our responsibility for our family life and our control of our own resources.
I think there is a great crisis of self-government in America. Everybody feels it. And yet, our leaders aren't willing to simply say that this is a time of crisis where our people must mobilize to reclaim their role as the sovereign people of the United States.
MICKELSON: Well, don't worry about this, Alan. You're getting all hot and bothered by this. Hillary [Clinton] is here. She will — even if we abandon our families and we don't take care of ourselves and assume that personal responsibility that you're talking about, like people used to do in the old days. We are "more advanced" now. And as long as Hillary is here, as long as the federal government is here, we don't have to be responsible because the federal government will bail us out.
KEYES: Two things are true, Jan. I think what you say, obviously, about the socialist, totalitarian Democrats like Hillary Clinton is true. They are obviously explicit representatives of that future in which we have surrendered our sovereign power — as people did throughout human history before this country was founded — to a little clique of despots who will then govern us, supposedly in our interest, but really for their own power and advantage.
And I wish I could tell you, though, that this is just Hillary Clinton. But the abandonment of our border security, the willingness to sacrifice for the sake of the greed of a clique of corporate interests the real sovereignty and security of the United States, that isn't just Hillary. It's not just Democrats.
MICKELSON: Right.
KEYES: It's coming from Republicans, as well. The elite in this country is betraying us, destroying our Constitution, giving up our sovereign rights, and having total contempt for what should be the sovereign role of the people of this country.
I think people are going to have to work, themselves, to get it back.
This is not going to be given them by a godless media, by abortion-minded moneybags who only look for their own profit. If people want to be free, they are going to have to get up and work for it. If they go to AlanKeyes.com, we have come up with a new political model that directly depends on the willingness of the people, themselves, to get active and do the work that's necessary to reclaim this country.
MICKELSON: You mentioned something a few seconds ago about judges usurping the proper role of the legislature. When they do that, and the legislature complies and allows them to get away with it and say, "Well, I guess the only way we can overcome judicial tyranny is to wait until we can elect new guys that we can use to pack the court with judges who will exercise their form of judicial tyranny," what is the proper role in dealing with judicial tyranny?
KEYES: It's very simple, really. All three branches are independent. The executive — the president, the governor — has a responsibility to the constitution of the state or of the national government. If it's the president, it's the national Constitution. He swears an oath to uphold it. If the judges tell him to do something, or if the judges are doing something that is against that Constitution, he has an obligation by his oath to refuse to file their opinion, and to step in and protect the country from the destruction of rights, our constitutional rights.
MICKELSON: What is the way to step in and do that?
KEYES: Look at Jeb Bush. The Jeb Bush situation down in Florida is a good example: Terri Schiavo was being done to death by judicial fiat and murder, and the Florida constitution says a citizen has an unalienable right to life that must be respected. In light of that, the governor should have gone down there, put in that feeding tube, and said that he has the responsibility under the Florida Constitution to defend this woman's life.
That's the kind of thing that needs to be done. The same can be done at the presidential level, using executive power to make sure the executive branch respects the life that is in womb and that represents our constitutional goal of "securing the blessings of liberty to our posterity" — which is to say, those who are not yet born.
The legislatures also have a responsibility, because when the judges overstep their bounds and start dictating the law, the legislature says no, and if the judges don't stop, they should be impeached.
MICKELSON: Here in the state of Iowa, you may know, just a few days ago, a local judge, a district judge, decided to redefine marriage and grant gays marriage licenses. It lasted just a few hours, until the fellow stayed his own order, in order that this could be put into the court system, and the next level of the judiciary should hear the case, rather than the legislature, which had already spoken on the definition of marriage.
The legislature here in Iowa, Democratic-controlled, and the governor, who is a Democrat — by the way, gay marriage is in the Democratic platform here in the state of Iowa, Alan Keyes — they are perfectly happy to watch the judicial tyranny. So what are the rest of us supposed to do, in the short-term and the long-term, to deal with judicial tyranny when the legislature is complicit?
KEYES: Step number one, if the legislature is complicit, people have to rise up, organize, and kick them out. That's what we are here for, and that's why we have the ballot and the vote.
But we're not doing this, because our system has been hijacked by people who tell us we don't have choices, except those who are dictated by a godless media, the mainstream, so-called, media that is mostly the sewage media. Those people are people who say that they don't believe that God has any role in morality, and who therefore are in total opposition to what the American people and most people in Iowa believe. And yet we let these people determine who is going to be a credible candidate.
The people should determine what their choices are, before they make the choice. But there's only one way to do it, and that is to adopt an approach that goes around the godless media, that goes around the money-powers who are trying to control our destiny, and directly empowers the people to not only make the choice, but to make sure they have good choices.
Go to AlanKeyes.com. We are asking people to take a pledge there that they are going to do the work that's necessary to build the steeple with a full army that can make the change in this country. But it will only happen if individuals make a serious promise to do the work and then keep that promise. And we're showing them how.
MICKELSON: Thank you, Alan Keyes. Welcome to the race. It's good to hear the clarity of your thinking again.
KEYES: Thank you very much, Jan. It's always good to steer that clarity with another clear voice. God bless your work.
MICKELSON: Thank you, sir. Bye-bye.
KEYES: Appreciate it. Bye-bye.
MICKELSON: In case you are wondering, there is a really interesting quote. This was from the first inaugural address of Lincoln. I'm not a great Lincoln fan. However, he said something on the very subject that Alan Keyes was addressing just a second ago.
He said:
"I do not forget the position assumed by some that constitutional questions are to be decided by the Supreme Court, nor do I deny that such decisions must be binding in any case upon the parties to a suit as to the object of that suit, while they are also entitled to very high respect and consideration in all parallel cases by all other departments of the Government.
"And while it is obviously possible that such decisions may be erroneous in any given case, still the evil effect following it, being limited to that particular case, with the chance that it may be overruled and never become a precedent for other cases, can better be borne than could the evils of a different practice.
"At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the Government upon vital questions affecting the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed (that is, said as a standard, not repaired) by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned their Government into the hands of that eminent tribunal (that is, the court)."
That is a great description of the sorry mess that Alan Keyes was just describing just a few moments ago.