Alan Keyes
December 6, 1997
Manchester, New Hampshire

I'm very pleased to be back in New Hampshire--especially pleased to have a chance to share some thoughts with all of you today. And I am especially glad to be here in the context of talking about a right that is not only much misunderstood and maligned in this country, but, sadly speaking, under assault from an out-of-control judiciary. And in the face of both the incompetence and the lack of courage of many of our political leaders, it is probably the most threatened and yet one of the most critical rights that we have--and that is the right to keep and bear arms.

We are in the midst, as I think many of us realize, of a great crisis in this Republic's life. There are many symptoms of that crisis. One of those symptoms is that, as a people, we are more and more coming to the point where we no longer have the self-confidence, we no longer have the trust and faith in ourselves, to hold on to those things that are essential to our liberty. And that, I think, is where we are when it comes to the question of guns.

Every time you turn, it seems like somebody is trying to take another episode and use it as a justification for saying, "Well, we gotta get rid of all these guns." This was, interestingly enough, the reaction to this terrible, tragic episode in West Paducah, Kentucky recently--a fourteen-year-old boy gets together some weapons and goes in to shoot at a prayer group. And what's interesting to me is, you have a fourteen-year-old boy, he goes to a school and he pulls out a weapon and shoots several students who are praying, and the moral of this story in the minds of some folks is that we've got to control the guns. It seems to me that what we see there is an example of several things that would prove: 1) we need to get back control of our kids, and 2) we need to get back control of the entertainment media and other media that have begun to foment such anti-religious bigotry that they lead to such acts of violence.

But many people will come forward after an episode like that, and immediately start to talk "gun control, gun control, gun control." Why? Because that is their favored response for violence. The way to deal with violence, the way to deal with crime, the way to deal with the challenge that we face as a people, the consequences of bad behavior is to control instruments. To control "things," because "things" are causing the problem. This is madness; but it's a madness that's deeply-rooted, I believe, in a certain way of understanding who we are as people, and what we are as human beings.

And that's what I want to talk to you about today. I hope that you don't mind that I'll probably get a little philosophic--a little more philosophic than might be usually the case in dealing with this issue. But I think we have to understand something. We are not just faced with an agenda that aims to deprive us of the means to defend ourselves. That effort to deprive us of the means to defend ourselves is but one part of a comprehensive agenda to deprive us, not of the right to keep and bear arms, but of all our rights.

And it rests on a certain understanding of human life and human nature. And we can see that reflected in many things. So I want you to consider some things that people don't often put together. And those are, on the one hand, the agenda of gun control, and on the other, the agenda of sex education in our schools.

"Whoa, Alan. What have those things got to do with each other?" Well, I'll tell you what. What is happening in our schools today when they approach kids with this sex education agenda? The big theme today, especially under the regime of Mr. Clinton--even extending now, it seems, to the current Miss America--going around and doing what? Basically telling people that "this whole idea that you can control yourself, and so forth, throw that out the window. You need to concentrate on safe sex. Here's your condom." Now, given Mr. Clinton's past predilections, I can kind of understand why he would think that that was the only way that one could do much in this area. But if you think about it, what they're standing before our young people to tell them is very simple: "We know you can't control yourselves. Therefore, this 'thing' is going to substitute for self-control. This 'thing' will keep you safe. And if you have this 'thing,' you will no longer have to worry about the fact that you cannot control your passions." That's what they are telling them.

That does not only give them a condom; it gives them a certain view of themselves, a view of themselves that says, "You don't have the capacity to restrain your passions; you don't have the capacity to act as responsible people. And since you can't act to control yourselves, we will give you a 'thing' that will safeguard you, keep you from suffering the consequences of your indiscipline." And so we more and more teach our children that they are beings who have no internal mechanism for disciplining their passions, for controlling themselves, so that they do not have to fear the consequences of their actions.

Now, I think that just in formulating it that way you can probably see where I am headed. Once you have convinced people that they can't control their passions, that the only way that they can be safe is if they are given some "thing," or put in some circumstance that makes them safe, that there is no internal basis for their self-control, you will hand them a condom, and tell them that will keep them safe when they are having sex--that's a lie, of course, but we'll tell them that.

But when you hand them the condom, what will you have to take away? You will have to take away anything that they might use to harm themselves or each other. Because, after all, if you can't control your passions, what happens when you get angry? Jealous? Resentful? When those passions start to smolder, in the face of that view that you are just a helpless victim of your passions, the assumption is that you are going to reach for the nearest thing, and you're going to use it to harm yourself or to harm others.

The view of human nature that tells our young people that they can't control their sexual passion is the same view of human nature that tells us all that we can't control our anger, we can't control our jealousy, we can't control those passions that lead to violence, and therefore we can't be trusted with the guns we need to defend our way of life. These are the SAME agendas.

These are the same agendas.

What we see coming forward, then, is actually an agenda that undermines our liberty by undermining not just our sense that freedom is important; no. It's worse than that. What they are undermining is our sense that we are capable of freedom, that we have the capacity to live as free people.

Because let's be frank about it. Don't kid yourself. If all of you in this room were convinced that freedom meant anarchy, that freedom meant violence, that freedom meant streets running with blood, property that could not be secured, that the consequence of freedom was going to be that we set ourselves against one another with no constraint and no control--NONE of us would be in favor of such freedom. We would, all of us, be willing to surrender liberty, if it meant we had to live in that kind of hell. And you know it.

So if somebody comes along and convinces us that we are incapable of disciplining and controlling ourselves, that concept, once it is inculcated, becomes the enemy of freedom, because we lose the confidence to claim our rights. We lose the confidence to believe that those rights are compatible with civilization, with decency, with peace, with order, with all the things that, in fact, we value. We do not wish to live in neighborhoods filled with fear; we do not wish to live with schools where our children kill one another. And so if we can be convinced that we are such people that, trusted with our liberties, that will be the consequence, guess what's gonna happen? We will abandon liberty. And this is what's happening.

This, I believe, is what people like Bill Clinton represent. You read between the lines of what he presents to the American people, and what he is basically telling us is, "We know that you are people who can't control yourselves, and we're here to help you. We'll help you deal with the consequences of lack of control of sexual passion through AIDS education and condom distribution, and so forth. We'll protect you from the consequences of your irascible natures, your anger, your jealousy, our resentment, because we will take all the dangerous things out of your hands, so that you can't hurt one another. And then we'll set up courts who will come in, and because you can't control your intimate personal relationships, we'll tell you what you should think, and how you should behave."

It goes so far now that, in going through some of our universities--I understand that they've even done this at places like Dartmouth--they now have these codes of conduct for students to determine what they shall do on dates. So we're getting to that level of distrust where you can't even ask someone out on a date without having a signed contract to determine what shall be the proper stages of relationship and intimacy. I feel kind of sorry for our youngsters these days--can't even go out on dates without hiring a lawyer, my gosh. Must get rather crowded.

But see, this is what happens though, when you have convinced people that they don't have the capacity for freedom, that there is no basis for responsibility, that they can't make right choices. When we no longer trust ourselves, we will no longer want our freedom.

And I think that that is behind the whole agenda. I call it the agenda of demoralization. It's literally the case, we are being demoralized. Demoralized in the sense that that understanding of ourselves as moral beings which is necessary for us to be confident in our claim and assertion of freedom is being destroyed. That sense of ourselves as people capable of doing what is right, what is just, what is decent, when the crunch comes, is being undermined. And in the service of that view, they come along then and they say, "But don't worry, the government will take care of you. The government will protect you. The government will guarantee that, in spite of your inability to do for yourselves, everything will go all right."

And that extends to every area, too. Because, you know, it turns out, my friends--and we actually saw this recently when Bill Clinton went to Virginia--if you can't be trusted with your guns, guess what else you can't be trusted with? Your MONEY! How can you possibly let people have such a potent power as money, to decide that they shall do what they want with it? If you let that happen, what's going to be the case? "These people will be nasty and selfish. They won't take care of the poor, they won't take care of the streets, they won't take care of the schools." That's the implication.

When Bill Clinton went down to Virginia and opposed Mr. Gilmore's pledge of getting rid of a form of taxation in that state, what did he tell people? He said that "these are selfish people, who want to control their own money." The idea being that we have such bad character that, left to ourselves, we will never use our money to take care of one another.

The sad truth is, of course, that in the context of the true America, that's the biggest lie of all. The beautiful thing about this nation's history is that, when you look at the actual record in dealing with poverty and such difficulties, we did a better job before the government came in to help than they have ever done since then!

But this approach is rooted in the same debased understanding of our human nature. "You don't have the capacity to control our passions, therefore here's your condom. You don't have the capacity to control your anger, therefore we must take your guns. You don't have the capacity to understand and meet your responsibilities of charity and love toward one another, therefore we must provide the welfare, and we must provide the aid, and we must provide even, in the end, the guidance for your children. You can't even be trusted with that."

And don't tell me it isn't happening. Bill Clinton went to a conference, just recently--"hate crimes" conference, they called it--and what did he say? He said we must encourage what they call "diversity education," to teach our children the proper attitude toward different races, and disabilities, and homosexuals, because parents cannot be trusted to teach their children what they need to know. That's what he said. The same agenda at work--the people are not capable of caring for themselves. And where does it extend? Right into the very family itself! He is telling us that we are incapable of loving and raising our children; the government will do a better job.

And most importantly of all, on this agenda, he is telling us that we are incapable of understanding what moral principles should guide the consciences of our children. We are incapable of understanding what ought to be those moral judgments that guide us in raising them up to distinguish between right conduct and wrong conduct, between liberty and licentiousness. The same concept at work--a concept that is based, ultimately, upon fear and distrust of the people, and that would invite us to put our confidence, instead, in the benevolent attentions of the government.

Now, I have to tell you, my friends--you look at our history, though, and this ought to give you great concern. Because here you have the wisdom of the Clinton/Gore-style people--trust the government; don't trust yourselves. What was the wisdom of our Founders? I think it was just the other way. Trust yourselves! Don't ever trust your government!

That latter is the beginning of wisdom, where political freedom is concerned. But to really understand what that implies, we have got to realize--"trust yourselves": what does that mean? It doesn't mean put blind faith in yourselves. It doesn't mean trust yourselves under any circumstances, in all conditions, no matter what kind of people you are. It doesn't mean that. It means be such people as can trust themselves. Be such characters as can be trusted with liberty.

And that's why we've got to realize . . . One of the things that is going on in this country that really disturbs me: you've got people who believe in economic freedom, and other people who believe in Second Amendment rights, and other people who believe in moral responsibility. And they are trying to tell us that we should be at each other's throats, that these are different agendas, somehow.

I'm here to tell you that that is a lie. It is all the same agenda. If we care about our freedom, we must care about building and sustaining the character that gives us the right, and the effective ability, to defend and sustain and live decently with that freedom. Character and liberty go hand in hand; they cannot be separated. If they successfully undermine our sense of moral decency, our faith in our own moral capacity, then they will easily turn us against our right to keep and bear arms; they will easily turn us into people who lack the confidence to claim even the right to raise our own children.

So what's the answer? There is an answer, you know. And it's a fairly simple, I think, and clear agenda. In the course of this century, we have in essence followed a path of surrendering control.

We have surrendered control of our money. That's where it first started. We surrendered control of our money, first and foremost, I believe, at the beginning of this century. We surrendered control of our money when we did something that Engels would have applauded and our Founders would have condemned. We surrendered control of our money when we allowed them to impose upon us a tax that--whatever its terms, whatever its structure, whatever its amount--can never be compatible with the life of a free people. The income tax is a slave tax, and it must be abolished!

You'll have some folks come before you, whose initials are Steve Forbes, and they will tell you . . . (pauses for laughter). You'll have some folks come before you, very nice folks, and they are making a suggestion that, from the point of view of our present oppression, might even look like an improvement. After all, if your oppressors have been accustomed to taking from you whatever they pleased, and have gone so far as to take from you twenty, and thirty, and forty, and fifty, and seventy, and eighty percent of what you earn under certain circumstances, and someone comes along and says, "Okay, we understand this is terrible. We'll promise not to take any more than fifteen." I guess at that point you would say, "That's a relief! Thank you!"

There's only one problem with all of this, my friends. There's only one problem with being grateful when somebody comes and tells you that they are only going to take away fifteen percent of your money with the income tax. And that is that, as long as you have an income tax, they still have the right to take it all away. As long as you have an income tax, you are still living at the mercy of those to whom you have ceded this exorbitant and excessive power. You are still living in a country where the assumption is that you go out and earn a dollar, and they have a claim to fifteen cents of it before you have any say in it at all. This has got to end! And unless we end it, we will not return to the status of a free people.

So I'll say unequivocally: the first step in our agenda of reclaiming our liberty--reclaim control of our money; abolish the income tax; return to the original Constitution of this country, under the terms of which the income tax was forbidden as a danger to our freedom!

The second--and I think we are getting progressively close to the key, key element--the second thing we had better do, if we care about the future, is we had better pay close attention to something that they all want to talk about, but that in the end, once again, when they come forward with their solutions, they never want to look at the real solution.

Because what is the future, after all? The future, as far as we all are concerned, is the consequence of that great privilege which God gives us to share in His creative power, that we can not only live this life, but engender it, so that new lives can be raised up. Our future looks back at us, it grows up before our eyes, it wins our heart, in the form of our children. And insofar as we have confidence that anything that we have done in this life is worth it, that anything we might do has some chance of lasting a little beyond our shadowy selves, it is because of the promise that they offer to us.

What have we done with them? I'll tell you what we've done: we have put them in government-dominated institutions, in the context of which we have abdicated our responsibility to them, put it in the hands of government, put it in the hands of educrats, let the Clintonites and the N.E.A. take over what ought to be our responsibilities. If we want to have that future of which we dream, then the next step after we reclaim control of our money--and while we work to do it--is we must reclaim control of our schools. We must take them BACK!

And I'll tell you, we can talk about the pros and cons of this or that plan, but there's only one principle that's gonna work. Where schools are concerned, if we want back the control of the schools, then there too we must take back control of the money. The money that is spent on education should follow the choice parents, not the choice of politicians and educrats and bureaucrats. Where WE want to send our children to school is where ANY money spent in this country on education ought to go. And it should go there without interference from, and without the domination of our elected political or bureaucratic elites. This is our right; it is our responsibility before God, not theirs.

And that's why I've always been such a strong supporter of school choice and other things. We can talk about the different forms it can take. I think that it's going to be different in different places. That's why I firmly, always believe that education ought to be, to begin with, a LOCAL responsibility, not even a state responsibility. Education ought to be controlled at the grass roots level; people ought to control education where they live, in their neighborhoods and communities. And if the state, and if the federal government, get in any way involved, it should be not as dominators, but as cooperators, with the lead and the initiative of people at the grass roots. If we abdicate that grass roots responsibility--and we have--we are not just giving away our present power, we are throwing away our futures.

And believe me, this is true in a literal sense. Because I happen to firmly believe, for instance, that most important influence I will have on my children, if I can have any at all, is not going to be in the material things that I can do or not do for them. There are all kinds of families in America, all different economic levels. Some are better off than others. Are poor parents somehow less worthy than rich ones? I don't think so.

My parents were poor. They couldn't give me a lot in the way of material goods and comforts when I was growing up. But they gave me a lot of things that will always be more important than anything money can buy. They gave me a fear and respect for God. They gave me, as a consequence, a sense of respect for myself, and a sense that that respect meant that I had to respect other people, and abide by God's will in the way that I treated them. They gave me a sense of respect for my work, so that I would always try, at least, to do the best I could. These are not things you can buy; they are not things you can sell. But they are things that any decent parents, whatever may be their conditions, whatever may be their difficulties, whatever may be their background, they can pass things on to their children.

But not, of course, if you allow the government to interfere. If a government's going to come in and tell parents who are trying to raise their children in the fear of God that God's name cannot be mentioned in their education, if a judge is going to come along--as he is doing down in Alabama . . . . A judge named DeMent. I've always thought he had a very appropriate name; there are just a couple of letters missing, though. I refer to him as Judge Demented. Judge Demented, down in Alabama, has actually put monitors in the hallways of a school, in order to make sure that nobody says any inappropriate prayer.

This is what we Americans have to fear, isn't it?--inappropriate praying. You've got folks who might want to pray before that football game: "Coach, don't do that; that's an inappropriate prayer." You have kids who might want to sit in the classroom and pray a little bit before that exam--as a matter of fact, I know a lot of kids for whom this may be the only hope--but Judge Demented says they better not say that prayer.

Whoever thought we would see the day in our American life when you would have courts dictating that our children could not pray, while bureaucrats dictated that they would have to watch pornography in the classrooms and take condoms from their teachers! This is wrong! They don't have the right to stop us from worshipping God, and they don't have the right to FORCE us to accept homosexual promiscuity and perversions. This is WRONG, and we DON'T have to sit still for it!

We must regain control of our schools, and by doing so reassert control of our families, our children's futures, our destiny.

But finally, the most important thing of all, I've got to tell you. I put it last, not because it is least important, but in fact because it is most significant. If we wish to achieve all of these things, then first and foremost we must regain control of ourselves. It's very simple. The essence of freedom is not doing what you want; it is having the capacity to do what you ought to do.

And as we forget this--as we accept this lying notion that freedom is all about choice, regardless of what choices they may be--we accept a demoralized, a denatured, a dehumanized understanding of ourselves that lowers us beneath the beasts, when we stand, in fact, higher than the angels. What is the matter with us?

Partly, I think, it's that when you say "regain control of yourself"--I mean, this does imply some limits. It does. You can't do everything you feel like doing. You can't claim, or accept, every right somebody comes along and offers to you, because there are some rights incompatible with the idea of any right at all.

That's why I spent so much time in the last campaign talking about the abortion issue. Everybody wished I'd shut up. "Alan, why do you always have to bring that up?" Some people might think it particularly odd that I would talk about the pro-life issue to a group of gun owners. But I'll tell you something: the people who insist that we should maintain the means to defend our lives from those who wish to destroy our liberties, to prey upon our property, are people who understand the difference between those who are criminals and those who are not. Those who are innocent and those who are law-abiding citizens, the people who insist that we maintain the means of self-defense are, I believe, some of the people who have the greatest respect for life of any people in this country.

There is no contradiction whatsoever between saying that I should have the means to defend my life and the life of my children born, and saying that I will have the decency to defend the lives of those children not yet born--it is the SAME impulse. It is the same principle.

But it especially amounts to the same thing, because what are they offering you with all these new rights? They started out with the right to kill your children in the womb: "Ladies, you have the right to kill your babies." We accepted that right. Now they come along and they tell us that we have the right to kill ourselves. Actually, you know, they are the same thing. They say, "Our bodies, ourselves." I say, "Our children, ourselves." And it is true in the literal sense. So when they offered you the right to kill your children in the womb, they were offering you the right to kill yourself--now they've just made it explicit.

But, hasn't anybody paused to think for a minute? When they offer you the right to kill yourself, you might do well to stop, just for a second, and consider: are they offering you a right, or are they making a suggestion? I was interested to see, for instance, the outcome of the elections out west, where in one state, the state of Oregon, they unhappily, I think, verified this notion that there was some right to assisted suicide, and right next door in Washington, they verified the notion that you have the right to keep and bear arms. Put those two things together, and there seems to be this odd agenda: you can keep your guns, so long as you use them on yourselves. Frankly, I don't like those terms, myself.

But what does it mean, when somebody comes and offers you the right to kill yourself? Well, I have to tell you that it actually contradicts the most fundamental premise of our liberty. In the Declaration of Independence it says, "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." I always like that word, "unalienable." Yet, I think we don't understand it well enough. Some people think that the word "unalienable" means that these rights cannot be taken away legitimately.

That's not what it means. No, see, the word "unalienable" is not a restriction on others; it's a restriction on us. The word "unalienable" comes from that aristocratic tradition which was based on the notion that when you got a title--in this case, the title of "humanity"--certain lands and privileges went with that title. And though you could sell other things, and you could give other things away, you could not sell or give away the lands and privileges that went with the title. They were unalienable.

And that's what it means in this context. It doesn't mean they can't be taken away; it means you cannot legitimately surrender them. You are obliged to hold on to them, and to respect them. The word "unalienable" does not restrict others in their assault on their rights; it restricts US from EVER surrendering those rights. And tell me--I can't imagine it--it seems to me kind of illogical, then, if somebody offers you the right to kill yourself, and you take it, then it seems to me that you have surrendered your most fundamental right. And that means that you are abandoning the principle that rights are unalienable.

See, we don't have the right to kill ourselves. The great philosophers who came up with our freedom actually explained most importantly why this is so--and I think pointed us, in the end, to that basic truth which we try to deny, these days, but which was so much in the minds of our Founders, and which ought to be on our own minds as we consider the agenda of vigilance for our liberty.

To be ever awake--that's what vigilance means. How many of you in this room can stay awake all the time? It's not possible, is it? Sleep is essential. What does it mean, then, to be ever vigilant? Well, the truth of the matter is, there's only one eye that's open all the time. Our Founders understood this, and when they wrote the great Declaration of Independence, and marched out to do what they had to do to claim their liberty, they did so with a firm reliance upon Divine Providence. Knowing that there are times when we shall sleep; there are times when we shall flag; there are times when, in our weariness, we shall fail; there are times when, in our temptation, in the face of the seductive offers of tyrants and despots, we shall be tempted to turn away from the disciplined true path of our liberty--but that there is One who will remain awake, and that is the same One from whom, in effect, all our rights are derived.

Because they did not say, contrary to what we often try to assert, that our rights come from the Bill of Rights and they did not say that our rights, in the end, come from the Constitution. Because before the Constitution was written, they had fought and died for these very rights which, in the end, it was structured to preserve. They told us unequivocally that those rights we claim, those rights we love, those rights we defend, come not from ourselves, but from our Creator, God.

And some people want to tell me: "Alan, can't say that; that violates the separation of church and state." I've got to tell you something: you look back at the history of this country, throw away all that mythology, because when you understand the truth about America, you will understand that without faith, there is no freedom; without God, there is no claim to liberty, whatsoever.

So if we want to hold on to those things which are our heritage; if we want to keep, first and foremost, a confidence that will allow us to stand up and assert our right to keep and bear arms, because we are responsible to use them only in defense of ourselves and our liberty; if we want to keep the strength of our families; if we want to regain the right control of our money, knowing that we shall use that money for our prosperity, and out of compassion we shall help each other, too; if we want all those things to be true, then I think we shall have to return, as a people, to that same humble subjection to the authority from which all these things derived, that characterized our Founders, that characterized every generation of Americans, until now. We must regain control of ourselves.

But the key to that, my friends, is to regain respect for the God who made us. I say that not just as some religionist, but as an American, who firmly believes that this nation has a great destiny ahead of it. (brief break in the tape; perhaps: "not just for the people of this nation, but for") all humankind. If we are to fulfill that destiny, then we shall have to fulfill the promise that was made when this nation was founded: the promise of a nation that, because we understand the source of our rights, we are able to sustain the character and the wisdom needed to preserve them for ourselves, and for our children, and for the hope of all the earth.

God bless you.