Alan Keyes
July 24, 1999

Larry Klayman: Let me introduce you to another friend. His name is Alan Keyes. He's someone who I've known since the beginning of Judicial Watch, back in 1994. Someone who is not embarrassed of his Judeo-Christian heritage. Someone who would hang the Ten Commandments on anything that he could find--perhaps that tree, even. And someone who lives by his own principles . . . and that's very important in this day and age.

I want you to listen to Alan Keyes. He's one of the greatest speakers in this country; perhaps one of the greatest speakers in this world. I'm always happy to speak before him because it's not good to speak after him. Let me introduce you to Alan Keyes. Thank you.

Alan Keyes: Thank you very much. Thank you. God bless you.

I want to first say that I am extremely impressed with the spirit that all of you have shown today--proving that, no matter how hot it gets, there are still going to be Americans tough enough to take it. That's right. I'm also greatly pleased to have been introduced by Larry Klayman and to be here under the auspices--among other things--of Judicial Watch. Because I have to tell you: if you look at what's going on in America today, what seems to be in shortest supply is a number of people willing to concentrate on just one thing, which is, in some ways, the only thing that we need in the way of leadership in this country today. And it's the one thing that is hardest to get: people who are willing, regardless of the costs and consequences, simply to concentrate upon seeking and finding and telling the truth to the American people.

It shouldn't be surprising that such people are in short supply because, after all, this is the Clinton Era. And it is an era that is characterized--above all--by the fact that we have sitting in the White House the political prince of lies. Somebody who has, in fact I think, carried that practice of lying to such a degree that he has actually earned the envy of most of his political colleagues.

Ah, you laugh. But you've got to know that one of the things that they strive for, sadly, in today's world . . . we have politicians who are more interested in manipulation than they are in service; who have as their main goal making sure they get and keep their positions of power; and who are therefore every day simply trying to figure out, "What do I have to say to these folks to get them to keep voting?" It doesn't matter if it's the truth. Doesn't matter if it reflects what is on their minds and hearts. Doesn't matter if it is good for this country. They will tell whatever lies they have to tell.

They might occasionally even tell the truth if it will serve their purposes. But probably not. Because, after all, if you tell the truth it binds you thereafter. If you tell a lie, you can always tell another one the day after.

But what are the consequences of this era of lies? In the course of the impeachment hearing, we had so many folks who would tell us that we shouldn't be bothering about the President's perjury and his lying. After all, it was his "private business." How the destruction of the integrity of our judicial system became the "private business" of this depraved President, I don't know. Why it is that an executive officer who absolutely no respect for the oath that he swore before God and the American people . . . how that lack of integrity can become the President's "private business," I don't know.

But even during the course of it, when folks were ignoring all of those obvious arguments, I tried to point out that, after all, this is the Commander in Chief. And if we have sitting in the White House somebody who does not have the integrity needed to be entrusted with the most awesome military power on the face of the earth--and indeed in the history of the globe--then we are in grave danger. We cannot afford a President without integrity in charge of that arsenal.

Now of course, wait, everybody said at the time--all of these folks who were defending Bill Clinton--they all had, of course, one excuse: we weren't at war. Isn't it a coincidence that the minute he got done with his trial, he took us into a totally unjustified war of aggression and then conducted that war according to the most immoral strategy that we have ever seen in the history of this country?

We shouldn't be surprised that the most immoral President we have ever had should lead us into the most immoral war we have ever fought--a war in which, it is widely acknowledged, has been acknowledged on the front pages of the New York Times (not exactly part of the "conservative conspiracy"), has been acknowledged on the front pages of the New York Times, they consciously targeted the civilian population of Yugoslavia for destruction.

And the sad truth is, my friends, you put in place a President like that and we become responsible for the deeds that he performs. Our money, our resources, our planes, our troops--carrying out a strategy guided by the same immoral will that stood before the American people week after week, month after month, year after year and filled the nation with his lies.

But that sacrifice of our integrity and conscience, if it were not bad enough, is not the only price we pay. Because when you have a President you can't trust, then you have to look very carefully at all those things that are going on that seem to suggest betrayal.

And I don't understand how it is . . . somebody was just telling me that one of these pundits--Bill Kristol--was out there the other day and saying that he saw no reason to make a connection between the Chinese efforts to bribe their way into influence in American politics and the espionage . . . "so-called espionage scandal" . . . with respect to the betrayal of our national security. I don't get this.

See, now, you've heard the old saying, "Where there's smoke there's fire?" Well the country's been filled with smoke for the last several years. We've had the smoke of their relationship with the Riady's and throughout Indonesia with the Chinese Communist economic interests. We've had the smoke of their decisions to turn over our sensitive technology to the Communist Chinese which they could then use to develop their military capability. We've had the smoke of the agents of the Communist Chinese having high-level meetings at the White House, bringing in people who were part of the Communist military structure and the decision-making structure that, in fact, arranged and planned the efforts to take advantage of our technology.

We have all this smoke, but, according to folks like Mr. Kristol, we shouldn't believe there's any fire. But then, we not only have the smoke. We finally, as we . . . some of us have been saying for the last several years as Larry and others have been taking the lead in saying for a long time and was, as finally acknowledged at least to a degree in the Cox report, that we've also seen what one Senator described as the "worst damage to our national security since Pearl Harbor."

Now, let me see here . . . if you have smoke and you have fire damage, wouldn't that suggest that you've had a fire?

I would say that we've had a fire in this country. I would say that we've had a fire that has brought damage on our national security that our children and our children's children will suffer for. I say that we have had a fire, the full consequences of which we may not understand for another decade--but which, in the end, will bring this nation and the world back within the shadow of nuclear destruction.

And with that kind of a fire taking place, the other thing that really disturbs me . . . And, I know, there are those who think I shouldn't say this kind of thing, because I am a Republican, I will acknowledge that. I am a Republican. I intend to stay a Republican. I will fight in the Republican arena to keep the party's heart where it belongs.

But standing here across from the White House and making it clear that we have to stand against Bill Clinton's lies and Bill Clinton's betrayal . . . I think we also have to make it clear that we stand against the willingness of those in the Republican leadership to bear with those lies and betrayals in silence!

The silence must be broken in order for the truth to be laid before the American people. For, the damage that we have suffered suggests that we shall still suffer damage if we don't get to the truth.

For, those very same forces that are able to surrender our nuclear codes and the secrets of our nuclear technology to the Communist Chinese . . . I wonder if that might not also give them some opportunity to sabotage the efforts we will undertake and should be undertaking to develop the missile defenses that could deal with the threat.

Is somebody thinking about this? Because if that is in fact the case, we not only surrender to an enemy the wherewithal to do us harm, we keep ourselves in a position to allow that enemy to destroy our countermeasures so that we will be ever more vulnerable to attack.

The same administration that has dragged its feet from the beginning in the development of our anti-missile defenses appears to have been responsible for turning over the secrets of our nuclear technology to the Communist Chinese. They have made us vulnerable and they have left us naked and we must find out who is responsible.

And, sad to say, you all know that I have spent a lot of time in the last several years trying to awaken the American people to the fact that the destruction of our character as a people, our willingness to turn our back on those fundamental moral ideas and ideals that shape the American character, is destroying our republic. I hope that we understand that the damage that we have seen to our national security is one consequence of that moral destruction. It's a consequence, in part because it led to the lapses of judgment that put Bill Clinton in office in the first place. But it's also one of the consequences, because it has led to the lack of courage, to the lack of integrity--but then unfortunately characterized the response of the Congress, so that they left him there.

We cannot escape the truth that a people who have surrendered its character is a people in the end who will surrender its liberty and its security.

And this is what I've been wondering. As I have watched over the last several weeks, we have a Senator tell us that we've suffered the worst national security damages we've seen since Pearl Harbor and yet the American people are wandering around like nothing has happened. When Pearl Harbor occurred we scrambled because we knew that our survival was at stake. If we have suffered a similar degree of damage, then our survival is at stake now. Why are we acting like a people who do not care?

I believe that the root of that indifference is the same as the root of that passivity, that lack of activism in the reclaiming of our rights which leaves us now in a position to be despoiled of them.

We have a government that has taken control of our income. We have a President that has betrayed our deepest national security. And yet we, as a people, seem to respond to it all as if the only thing that matters is that the stock market's up and the GNP.

I think that we are very much in the position of those ancient cities and republics that waxed fat and soft until they were finally destroyed by barbarian enemies. We will not sustain our liberty if we do not sustain the character that makes us free. And the proof of that is in the damage we suffer apparently without indignation at the hands of those who, even now, betray us.

The proof is also now in the schools where the halls run red with the blood of our young, sacrificed on the altar of that moral void of depravity that has left them the prey to the worst kind of moral evil and seduction.

We will not survive if we don't come to our senses.

But what will be the basis for that? It's all well and good to say that we are in danger. It's all well and good to see that damage to our national security. But what is it that is going to fire our hearts and souls so that, like generations before, we are willing to stand up and do something about it. I believe that there can be no foundation for that kind of action unless and until we return to that faith which, in the past, formed the only solid ground of American's fight for liberty.

When our Founders stood in the beginning . . . they wrote that wonderful document, the Declaration of Independence. I was intrigued the other day to be told by one of my colleagues that, of all people, Bill Bradley was being interviewed by someone and he described himself as a "child of the Declaration." And I found myself . . . I didn't know whether I should be shocked or amused at that . . . but the only thing I'm sure of was this: if there are any "children of the Declaration" in the Democrat Party, I'm sure they've all been aborted by now.

Because they do not wish to understand the real implications of what lies in that Declaration. The one . . . the most important truth, the truth that is presumed in all the rest, is not that we have rights, is not that government is based upon consent. It has, in fact, nothing to do with all those things that we can claim and that we can demand. It has to do with this: the acknowledgment that the right and the justice rest not on our will but the will of Almighty God.

The words that they don't want to quote, "We hold these truths to be self-evident . . ." (they don't much like the word "truth" in this era of lies) ". . . that all men are created equal . . ." I wonder how someone like a Bill Bradley or anybody else who stands in that pro-abortion camp can say the words "created equal" without choking. Because, after all is said and done, how on earth can you be "created equal" if there is no Creator? How on earth can you pretend to accept the principle that all of us are endowed by that Creator with an equal right to life and liberty when, in the name of "human choice," you trample on the life and liberty of our innocent, unborn children in the womb?

This is a contradiction that destroys the professions of people like Bill Bradley--but, you know, it's also the contradiction that's destroying us as a people. Because right now--and until we have restored our allegiance to those Declaration principles--we live under the culture of abortion, the regime of abortion, imposed upon us by the wrongheaded judgments of our Supreme Court.

And I believe the consciousness that we have abandoned, our most sacred and fundamental moral principle, is precisely what today taps our moral confidence and destroys our moral energy. It leaves us in a position where, whether we like it or not, we are haunted by the belief that we are, in fact, unfit for freedom--unfit for freedom because we trample on its most sacred disciplines and standards and reject its most important truths.

We cannot claim rights for ourselves when we deny that godly authority by which those rights inhere in every human being, including the innocent human beings in the womb.

But, in the end, I believe that that is right now the key to the fact that we don't have . . . Despite the evident truths that are before us, we don't have overwhelming success in the agenda that seeks to reclaim American rights and liberties. We can talk, certainly, about how we'd like to have more control of our institutions, our schools, our communities, our businesses, our money. We have all the politicians who parade up and down telling us that they're gonna "do something and give it back to us."

But you want to know the truth? Every indication suggests that when you respect the rights and capacity of the American people, things turn out better. We have seen the proof of that in this wonderful expanding economy. I know a liar in the White House wants to claim this credit as his own, but you and I know that expansion started when a modicum of relief was given from the accepted burden of taxation and over-regulation under the leadership of Ronald Reagan, and it has continued unbroken in any significant degree until the present day.

You just give that much respect to the American people and see what it does.

But in spite of that success, we still have these jokers debating now what they should do with this so-called surplus. Now, you know, I'm not a great believer in the surplus--that actually involves a lot of lying about the social security system. But, you've got to know that it's still telling, don't you think, that they should stand there now saying, "We've got the surplus. Should we have tax cuts? Do we dare to let the people of this country keep their own money?" "NO," say the politicians, "we've got to talk about this."

Frankly, I don't see what there is to talk about. Because if we didn't have an oppressive wage-slave income tax system, we wouldn't have surrendered control of those dollars in the first place! And, frankly, I don't see any reason that we should be grateful to 'em when they dribble back a little of it to us.

I don't just want the dollars . . . I want control of the dollars. And I don't want control of 10% more or 20% more . . . I want control of 100% of the money that I make. I think every American should have the right to that control.

But when you get . . . I actually did this on purpose, because I know we cheer for that. And I could give a rousing declaration here about how we need to get back control of our schools too--because, after all is said and done, who's responsible before God for the education of children? Hillary Rodham Clinton notwithstanding, it doesn't take a village to raise a child, it takes a decent mom and dad to raise to that child!

And we ought to show respect for the capacity and responsibility of parents in this country and we ought to let the money we spend on education follow their choice, not the choice of edu-crats and bureaucrats and politicians. It's true.

And again, we can actually see the answers: we've got to get control of our money, control of our schools--all of this is true--so why aren't we doing it? And when you look at the results, whether it's the expanding economy or all the studies and surveys that have shown that when you let parents take the lead, when you have school choice, you get better results for everybody . . . including children in the most hard to reach, hard to educate urban areas of this country. That's right! And, if that's the truth, why don't we see that truth acted on instead of just debated in the Congress and here in Washington, D.C.?

Why aren't we winning?

We're right; why aren't we winning?

We're right, and the facts show that we're right, and the American people applaud for the things that offer them--rights and liberty. Why is it, then, that when Bill Clinton and when other liberals stand up and say, "Nope. We can't do that," so many people are willing to accept their argument?

"Can't turn over control of schools to parents . . . they'll ruin everything, they'll destroy the schools."

"Can't turn over control of money to the American people . . . they'll neglect the poor, they'll neglect the elderly. Everybody will be hurt and starve and suffer if the American people are given control of their money."

Huh? Why do we accept these arguments?

The reason we accept it, my friends--yes we do, sad to say. That's why we lose too much. I'm not saying "we" in the sense of those of us here. Obviously not. I say "we" in the sense of an American people that, in spite of all these truths, still sits on its hands, instead of mobilizing in order to reclaim its rightful liberty. Sitting back to listen to politicians talk to us as if we should be coddled victims instead of self-governing citizens in this republic! Why do we accept it?

Why would we believe that we accept the destruction of our liberty? For the same reason we are accepting the destruction of our national security and our sovereignty. We accept it, my friends, because in the end there's some part of us that actually believes that these socialists and liberals are right.

I'm sorry . . . Yes! . . . and when they say that the American people are unfit to be free, when they say that the American people are "just like" Bill Clinton . . . JUST LIKE HIM! . . . You know what that means, by the way? It means that if the whole world depended on it, you still couldn't control your lust and your lying and your passion. If we're like Bill Clinton, then we are as UNFIT to be free as he is to be President of the United States and you know it!!

So what does it mean? The liberal socialist arguments with which all too often they are able to keep this people from reclaiming its rights, to keep this people from demanding the truth about its safety and the surrender of its sovereignty--those liberal arguments rest, in the end, on exploiting the lack of moral confidence in the American people.

My friends, we don't believe in ourselves anymore. We don't believe in our own goodness anymore. And I don't know why.

I remember I was at the UN years ago, representing the United States for Ronald Reagan. And one day, one weekend, I was out with my son. And, as usual, it was in the midst of one of those times we were always at war in the United Nations with some element or other of the Soviet bloc--this one or that one--at the time. And we were out and we walking along that plaza where they have all those different flags of the different countries and I was explaining to him what this one and that one was and we finally got to what was, at that point, the flag of the old Soviet Union. And he points up to it--he's very young--and he says, "Well whose flag is that?" And I said, "Well, that represents the bad guys," I said. And, obviously, I still believe that I was quite right about that.

And then we got to the American flag, which was quite close, [and my son asked,] "If that's the bad guys, what does that one represent?" I said, "Well, that one represents the good guys--that's us." But, you know something my friends, if we keep going the way we're going, persisting in the path that we have persisted in, then we, the very country that more than once in this century has saved the world from the shadow of the worst evils, will no longer be there in the 21st century to save the world from the shadow of evil.

And worse than that . . . we won't save the world from that shadow because we will be casting it.

We don't get it, do we? We are either going to continue to be the country that holds before the world those ideas and standards of godly justice and liberty and decency for which so many of our patriots dies, or we are going to turn into that power which plunges the world into a maelstrom of evil like nothing we have ever seen.

I frankly don't think that for America there will be a middle way. And that's the truth of it. And we are already at it. For, we've had an administration that has aided and abetted and promoted and coerced the culture of death in every continent and toward every nation on the fact of the earth already.

Using our capital, and our money, and our clout they have forced other nations to take the same ungodly stance toward innocent life in the womb that they take now.

So my friends, don't think that this is just some future that we are talking about. We are already far down the road toward the destruction of our republic, our conscience, our decency. The question isn't whether we will choose that road but whether we will turn back now before we pass the point of no return.

But I believe we never shall, until we have restored in ourselves that sense of who we are that corresponds to the truth of our heritage and our history. But I know, as a black American standing before you, there are many folks who would spend their time beating up on America . . . "Oh, there was slavery!" and so forth and so on. I've got news for all of the people who beat up on this country because there was slavery in America: there was slavery just everywhere in the world in the history of the earth, at all times and places that you can think of.

And my friends, you know what's remarkable about this nation? What's remarkable about this nation is that it was begun on a principle that cast the harsh light of truth on the oppressive institution of slavery. It was born on principles that kept alive the shamed conscience of America, until--through the efforts and sacrifice and blood of thousands and tens of thousands--that wickedness was rooted out and destroyed in this land by the efforts of the American conscience.

We are not a perfect people, by any means, and we haven't always avoided injustice. But, because we have lived under the banner of those principles of truth and moral decency that point us back, in the end, not to our own perfection, but to the perfection of God's will and God's law and God's truth--because we live under that banner, we have, generation after generation, found within ourselves the resources of heart and courage and mind and conscience to fight the battle for what is right.

I look at the course of this century and, you know, twice we have indeed been the keystone of the world's struggle against the worst kind of oppression--once during World War II and, once again, of course, in facing the focus of evil that was the Soviet Empire. And the remarkable thing is that, in the course of those struggles, we achieved a position of such power that, at one point after the Second World War, we could very well have dominated the earth, called the tune and made everybody dance, because we had what all the conquerors in the world had dreamt of: we had the thunderbolts in our hands. The fact that we didn't use them but instead offered a hand of help and healing even to our former enemies ought to remind you of the kind of people we are! And, being that kind of people, living under that standard and banner of justice, how is it that we have lost confidence in our decency? How is it that we have lost confidence in ourselves?

I believe it is because, though we have fought the shadow of evil abroad, we live now under the shadow of evil in our consciences and in our hearts at home. And we will not again reassert, as we must, our claim to liberty and self-government until we have restored our moral allegiance to those principles of truth.

And that's why I say again: whether it comes to our national security and finding the courage to get to the bottom of that betrayal which has set us up for a new century of fear; or whether it comes to dealing with the problems of crime and violence in our street; whether it comes to dealing with the challenges of claiming our rights and defending our rights; none of it will work, none of it will succeed, not one element of that agenda of true conservatism and American principle will prevail, unless and until we have fought and won the battle to restore this nation's moral heart.

That's the reason why, everywhere I go, I challenge people to make that the top priority in their political thought--not because I think these other things are unimportant, but because I think liberty is so important. And I know that liberty cannot survive and will not be restored until we have restored our reverence for the fundamental moral truths which alone shape our conscience, our character, and assure our better destiny.

Now that, to me, is in the end a great message of hope. But that hope does not come because I trust in our strength and our wisdom--because I'm not sure I do. If we are as strong and as wise and as wonderful as some people try to claim we are because of our technological advances and all this . . . then we wouldn't have spent the last 50-60 years destroying our liberties. We would have been wiser and we would have been stronger than that.

What gives me hope is that, if we do return to those fundamental truths, then we will see in them the one truth that offers hope and strength, no matter what is happening in human affairs: "We hold these truths to be self-evident," they said, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights . . ." Our hope is not in our good right arm, our weapons, our material success. Our hope is now where it has always been--in our faith that there is a Creator, that His will is the foundation of our claims to right and justice and that, in the end, through His grace and through His understanding, we can divine the strength that we need to remain, as we should remain, free.

I say those words with, maybe, a greater sense of conviction because the fight for me is about making sure that my children and grandchildren do not live in some form of the chains that clanked on the limbs of my ancestors. It offers me small comfort to see in that future that the enslavement will be general. Because that's not what we are supposed to be about.

The hope that this nation offers to the world is not a prospect of universal despotism in exchange for security and a government that takes care of all our needs. It is, rather, the promise of a destiny that corresponds to human dignity, to human responsibility, to that claim to freedom which comes not from ourselves but from our God.

If we can rededicate ourselves here to our allegiance to that faith, then I believe that faith will survive from within us, the light to dispel the dark portents of our ruin--which I'm afraid are all to clear in the Clinton administration.

But that hope will not come from a leadership. It will not come from a Congress. It will not come from a White House. My friends, it's got to come from you. And it's got to come from you in the most important and fundamental sense of all . . . not only that you rise to feet to cheer for those things that you believe . . . but that you fall to your knees to ask the Lord our God to help us in our achieving our ends.

If we are willing to humble ourselves in that way, then I think we can be sure of this: He will not fail in His promise to hear our prayers and to heal our land. Let this then be the ground of our faith and let that faith be the ground of our courage. And with that courage, let us go forward to assure that the heritage of liberty that came to us we shall pass on to our children in a new millennium--so that it may, in fact, be a millennium that realizes the enormous hopes and promises that God harbors in His heart for us all when first He said, "Let us make Man" . . . when first He sent His Son to save us even from ourselves.

God bless you.