Posted on 09/11/2004 5:48:34 AM PDT by unspun
Queer Eye for the Media Guy
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Come on, be straight with me. Did you believe that?
Now, would you like to hear the actual interview? Here is an mp3 audio file of it. So have a listen. If you failed the bumper sticker test, “Don’t believe the liberal media,” and really thought he attacked poor Mary, come out of the closet.
By the way, as unfortunate as it is to be a selfish hedonist (and don’t we all know it?), it gets worse. Just between you and me, Ms. Cheney is a practicing lesbian. No, I’m not calling her names; she tells people about it, herself. And whatever reason Keyes had for granting this interview to him, Michelangelo Signorile is an arch homosexual activist.
Well, at least Keyes showed he’s no homophobe. He spoke up just as fearlessly to Signorile of all-homosexual-all-the-time Sirius OutQ satellite radio, as he has to anyone else, Lord love us all.
Credit Mary Mostert for acting up for Keyes and outing this interview with pride (and credit Signorile for letting it fly, without copyright inhibitions).
In Mostert’s comments, "Alan Keyes teaches sex education lesson to homosexual interviewer," she relates Signorile, “is known for what we might call harassing politicians about sex. He prowled the halls of the 1996 Republican Convention in San Diego, which I attended, pouncing on unsuspecting delegates about sex.”
She also transcribed the brunt of the interview, for hearing-impaired PC’s.
But since you just took a moment to listen, you know that Keyes stood strong for the president and vice president, both before and after he explained how marriage is human mating and mating is sexual - and sex by its utter definition is male/female. (Remember Biology class? Botany, yet? Even plants know this.)
Even so, tolerant Keyes stood up for the VP’s personal right to believe in “gay marriage.”
Others in IllinoisLeader.com and I already examined Keyes’ taking on the obvious Signorile ploy, “So Mary Cheney is a selfish hedonist; is that it?” Keyes is adamantly pursuing his unique experiment, of a political candidate “telling it like it is,” however uncomfortable and downright offensive that pesky truth-telling thing may be to any of us voters.
Just look at the latest Keyes call: that Christ Jesus would not vote for Barack Obama, who truth be told, maintains a pro-infanticide record in the state Senate - for partial birth abortion and even the “practice” of forcing birth in order to off the air-gasping person.
And by the way, if your voting were Christ-influenced, could you vote for Obama? I sure couldn’t.
Let’s rerun last week’s episode, “Selfish Hedonist Attack” on the media side. See how the communal consciousness of the Borg-like media is much, much more in tune with Signorilean homophiliactivism, than with the straight talk of folk who understand the facts of life and marriage. (Apologies for Star Trek jargon. The monstrous “Borg,” for those who don’t know Seven of Nine, for instance, automatically share thoughts with each other and aggressively assimilate the minds of victims into their collective.)
Let’s use Google, the not so little search engine that could not tolerate some pro-marriage sites, banning them for being non-PC “hate.”
In news.google.com, entering “Alan Keyes AND Cheney AND attack” I find oh… 122 news items. With news.yahoo.com: 92. Now, substitute “attack” with “(lash OR lashed)” as in, “lashed out!” and one gets Yahoo: 24, Google: 7.
And look, an article coming up front and center from the Libune - the once cherished Chicago Tribune, for those who haven’t read it in a decade or three.
By the Lib’s Jennifer Skala and Ofelia Casillas, it reads, “As the Republican National Convention focused on unity Tuesday, Keyes lashed out at the vice president's gay daughter. And it was only the second day of the convention.”
Entitled, “Keyes takes jabs at his own party,” the “report” serves to portray the candidate at odds with Judy Baar Topinka and John McCain, who can usually be counted on for a quote disparaging the conservatives he somehow maintains are his cohorts, when they get uppity. Plus, they found another homosexual-rites activist to quote.
Case in point, how a scandal is born. Keyes' comments get rushed, wildly out of context, from a leftist gotcha interview and into the faces of those who can best provide statements to alienate one who dares call homosexuality the unfortunate sin it is. Discord is sown in Republican ranks.
Also born is a bonus from McCain, criticizing Keyes for comparing abortionists to terrorists. The Libune didn't get balancing comments from any infants being ripped apart.
Are other news media as affected as the Tribune? How about I turn the tables and ask you to find any initial major mediateer reports of Michelangelo's Keyes interview that neglected the terms "attack" or "lash out?" Maybe someone can even find one providing Keyes' moral, philosophical, and empirical context for the phrase "selfish hedonism."
Let me know.
And do you know someone who still thinks Keyes “lashed out” at the Cheney family? Feel free to send this link along.
Campaigning, am I?
Searching for truth and campaigning to spread it around, I hope - not terribly unlike Alan Keyes, come to think. And hey! That’s what journalists are supposed to do, too.
© 2004 IllinoisLeader.com -- all rights reserved
[Arlen Williams keeps an eagle's eye on the news, from his perch on the outskirts of Chicagoland. Write to Arlen at arlen.williams@unspun.info.]
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What are your thoughts concerning the issues raised in this commentary? Write a letter to the editor at letters@illinoisleader.com, and include your name and town.
It seems that the small benefit of posting on a Keyes thread has been outweighed by the benefit of participating on FR.
Please don't take my lack of response as a lack of opinion on Dr. Keyes.
I meant to ping you to my comment as well.
Yeah, and you folks are *still* trolling.
What is your problem???
True.
I appreciate your comments, betty. :-)
I'm sorry to hear about that banning thing, TheOtherOne. I didn't know. I just hate it when that happens.* So I understand why you feel a tad shy speaking about Dr. Keyes. More's the pity, for I'm really interested in what you think.
May I ask if you are an Illinois voter? If so, what's your take on Barak Obama? I live in Boston, but am very interested in what's going down "on the ground" of the Illinois senate race.
*It seems to me that people are entitled to their own view of matters and ought to be free to present their views, in good faith with respect for others. That sort of thing helps keep us from becoming "politically correct" (i.e., from rigid ideological, doctrinaire thinking...). Sorry for the sermon; I just had to get that off my chest.
It could be that the AUTHOR of the article pinged a few of us - those YOU disapprove of - over here and ASKED US to comment on HIS article.
YOU have a problem with that?
Unspun, for fear of offending k2blader and a couple of other thin-skinned posters here, I will not comment other than to say I very much enjoy your writing, and from our correspondence, believe I agree with you on many more points than I disagree with you on.
I am not an Illinois voter, I reside in CA. So other than my curisoty, I don't really have much at stake in Il. I was curious about the race. While Dr. Keyes has many good views, his manner and method of communicating is very off-putting. Considering I am 100% against gay marriage, it is quite a trick for Dr. Keyes to make me disagree with him, and the way he frames the issues. Yet, somehow he does. With Dr. Keyes, he and I may agree on the actual issue, but he infuses the conclusion with how he personally arrived at it. So instead of building a consensus on an issue, he is more interested in making everyone share his exact view.
I think that is about I want to say about that.
TYVM, Amelia. One would prefer that FReepers tone down the flame, when they put Alan Keyes on the front burner. (Not to be confused with Illinoisians fanning the flames for AK votes.) Then again, "I'd like to teach the world to sing...."
But these words of yours bear re-repeating from FReeper to FReeper:
I agree with you on many more points than I disagree with you on.
While Dr. Keyes has many good views, his manner and method of communicating is very off-putting.
As much as I admire Dr. Keyes, I agree with you on this point, TheOtherOne. And I speak as a long-term observer, admirer, and “fan” of his, dating back to his service in the Reagan Administration. He speaks with a self-assurance that I imagine strikes many people as bordering on arrogance. And if one doesn’t immediately grasp “where he’s coming from,” his rhetoric can and often does come across as very off-putting.
Be that as it may, what it all seems to boil down to for practical purposes is this: IMO, Dr. Keyes totally lacks the instincts of a politician. And I suspect this goes to something more than his obviously deeply held Christian commitments. For there is another notable politician running around today who shares Dr. Keyes’ Christian commitments in as deep a way yet who does not seem to much trouble folks – at least not most folks outside of the progressive Left, that is. His name is George Bush, and he is a very successful politician. :^) And also (from my point of view), an eminently worthy and trustworthy man.
What I wish Dr. Keyes would learn is that “you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.” But frankly, I strongly doubt that he has much concern for PR and “political spin” as such….
And so I can relate when you write:
Considering I am 100% against gay marriage, it is quite a trick for Dr. Keyes to make me disagree with him, and the way he frames the issues. Yet, somehow he does. With Dr. Keyes, he and I may agree on the actual issue, but he infuses the conclusion with how he personally arrived at it. So instead of building a consensus on an issue, he is more interested in making everyone share his exact view.
I think this is a fair assessment, TheOtherOne (at least short of the second phrase of the concluding sentence, with which a person might disagree.) Which underscores the point already alleged, that Dr. Keyes profoundly lacks political skills. And more’s the pity for that. For in my view, here we have a man who is (IMHO) a world-class thinker, who has thoroughly mastered the philosophy and intent of the U.S. Constitution (e.g., I totally agree with his reasoning regarding the desirability of repeal of the 17th amendment in order to restore the original constitutional balance of powers), who is enormously well-educated and deeply aware of the history of America and of Western culture and its traditions, who is steeped in public service experience, and who profoundly loves his country.
Unfortunately, such qualities do not seem to be in much demand these days among the general electorate. But it seems Dr. Keyes will not “cut himself down” to what fits, to what does sell to voters. And in this, I think he is leaving the field wide open to Barak Obama – who gives every indication of being a first-class, instinctively talented politician who will “cut himself” to fit the perceptions and expectations of the time as circumstances may require, for the single-minded purpose of election to national office.
In short, if I understand the man at all, Keyes would rather not be elected, than to have to stoop to such a policy. Or so it seems to me. Instead, he will stand on principle, every time, rather than kow-tow to political expediency. Personally, I find that admirable – although highly dubious as a winning election strategy.
And thus the voters of Illinois – if they are at all thoughtful – would seem to be confronted with a very stark choice of candidates in their senate race this year.
On the one hand, they have an “abrasive” non-politician who will stand or fall on principle; on the other, they have a person who thrice has voted against born-alive infant legislation in the state of Illinois.
Regarding the latter, I have to ask: What kind of a man is it that refuses to protect the life of an already-born, living child? And further, what kind of people would we Americans become, if we did not find the refusal to protect the life of a fellow already-born human being from gratuitous extinction as beyond the pale of civilized society?
Please don’t get me wrong: I am not a “single issue voter.” It’s just that, to me, the refusal to protect the life of an already-born infant goes straight to the very core of what America means, and what it means to be an American. To me, such refusal represents an “insensitivity” worthy only of a hard-core fascist or communist. Moreover, I consider the deliberate refusal to protect the born-alive infant as a total violation of constitutional protections, one that undermines the entire purpose of a system of government formed for the sole purpose of upholding and defending life, liberty and equal justice under law.
Well, for whatever it’s worth, I’m grateful to you for letting me “vent,” TheOtherOne. And I especially thank you for sharing your thoughts with me. Hope neither of us gets banned this time! :^)
Thanks again for writing.
This seems like a rather abstract, even false choice, TheOtherOne. The problem with Dr. Keyes is that, although his logical analysis and sense of history are invariably "spot-on," his seeming stridency can be so off-putting to certain people that they do not listen to what he is saying, or realize the strength of the basis on which he is arguing. In the present case, that basis is about forty millennia of human natural experience: Marriage is about child-rearing, not religion per se. Religion and culture support it because it serves natural, long-range human interests.
Indeed, cultural anthropologists have noted that male-female pair-bonding most probably arose in the human species as a "social strategy" geared to the natural needs associated with protecting and rearing children. For as you know, the period of dependency of a human child is vastly longer than that of even the higher primates. They also speculate that religious sanctions and ideas regarding the family structure soon followed, in order to provide maximum social support for the nuclear family that arose in these circumstances. This is a case of religious ideas and institutions arising in support of an already existing fact of nature -- long before the appearance of the biblical texts. Scientists speculate that pair-bonding dates back to about 40,000 B.C....
From the Christian perspective, God in creating man gave him a nature, and moreover intended that this "natural man" should live in society. Marriage is that natural institution that has ever fostered and preserved both throughout human history, universally and without regard to particular cultural forms or geographies or times.
The point to bear in mind is that, if cultural anthropologists are correct, marriage (i.e., exclusive and long-lived male-female pair-bonding) was a natural institution before it received religious sanction. And the understanding of marriage is based on the natural fact that it encompasses a relationship of a man and a woman for the propagation and protection of new members of the human race coming into existence -- their children. If one were a Darwinist, one might even say that marriage has had "selection value" for the development and survival of the human race. Sexuality per se is by far a secondary concern on this model.
The gay marriage issue is basically an attempt (1) to change the meaning of language, and thereby (2) undermine the natural order of human societies. They wish to turn away from the accent on the human future implicit in the traditional concept of marriage as related to the natural long-term needs of the human race, in favor of an understanding that places its entire emphasis on personal sexual gratification in the here and now.
But it seems to me the "equal rights" argument is a total canard; for no gay person is discriminated against in the matter of marriage. It's just that most gays do not wish to marry a person of the opposite sex.
If one denies God, one can find it easy to deny the natural order and natural law. It's the modernist-denies-God-gives-way-to-postmodernism deconstruction we've noted before.
bb, here is a cloumn from Tom Roeser that touches on Keyes inclinations toward Thomas Aquinas, which (forgive me, those who are actually educated in this) I think seem to be Catholic-Monk-meets-Aristotle --and I think that may account for some of Keyes angles on such moral things:
Keyes' Refreshing Honesty Could Change GOP
Keyes/Aquinas/Aristotle seem sometimes/often to try to idealize the things of nature and try to delineate and apply a portion of reality as the whole if it --as opposed to appreciating how God's real ideal is reflected and spoken of, in part here.
I think it would be easier to swallow, if on such subjects as homosexuality vs. marriage, to be more like 17th Century (or even 21st Century!) types than going back to see Tommy the Monk. By 17th Century, I mean getting some help from empiricism --and allowing God to be very, very big and "His steps beyond tracing out" as the writer of the Epistle said!
Of course a postmodernist can just pooh-pooh that, too, until he gets AIDS and dies.
Apologies to "Aquinasfan." 8-o
I think it would be easier to swallow, if on such subjects as homosexuality vs. marriage, to be more like 17th Century (or even 21st Century!) types than going back to see (a-hem) Aquinas. By 17th Century, I mean getting some help from empiricism --and allowing God to be very, very big and "His steps beyond tracing out" as the writer of the Epistle said!
I mean, in part...
...how marriage is human mating and mating is sexual - and sex by its utter definition is male/female. (Remember Biology class? Botany, yet? Even plants know this.)
I think this as a starting point is more straightforward semantically and easier on the ear than to start with saying, "the basic purpose for marriage is procreation..."
Then, sure, let fly with all the truth we ascertain from revelation, cultural antropology, etc., etc. --even "sociology," if one feels he has to refer to that bowl of cause-and-effect spaghetti.
I AM a single issue voter. Voted for Alan every time I could. Sent him some $$.
If I lived in Illinois, I would work for him and vote for him and give him money.
Then I would get busy on the folks who manufactured this so called campaign - take names and kick them out.
Excellent post, Betty.
Modernism in its various forms has largely served to constrict our understanding of the world, rather than expand it. Modernism represents an agglomeration of reductionist errors, from idealism, which diminishes the material, to materialism, which denies the universal, to scientism, which denies the eternal, and finally postmodernism, which reduces all human action to the will to power.
Certainly, the great 13th century Scholastics (Albert the Great, Bonaventure, Aquinas) could benefit from the insights of modern science, but they provided "the science before science" (a glorious synthesis of Christian theology and Aristotelian philosophy) that made the modern scientific enterprise possible.
All in all, it's been pretty much downhill since the 14th century, modern scientific achievements not withstanding. Of course a postmodernist can just pooh-pooh that, too, until he gets AIDS and dies.
Apologies to "Aquinasfan." 8-o
No problemo. Thanks for the ping.
And so it seems does modern scientific theory also. Yet it seems all such endeavors inexorably crash on the same rock: You cannot extrapolate from a part of reality in a way that can ever make the part sufficient to explain the whole of which it is a part. A relation of a part to the whole of which it is a part is ineluctibly contingent in that the part depends on the whole for the expression of itself.
Another way to put this point is to say that, from the standpoint of any formulation or doctrine of law, the contingency of most if not all natural events taking place in spacetime reality must be ruled out in advance, as a matter of principle, in order for the subsequent systematic presentation of the nature of reality to be "valid."
This probably sounds pretty weird. So let me try to explain what I mean. I suspect that people do not appreciate the extent to which most if not all events taking place in "normal" humanly experienced reality are contingent. By a contingent event, we mean something that arises in experience that cannot be completely described or explained as a consequence of causal events that have taken place in the past.
Thus by definition, the contingent is ever an "addition" of something that is new in experience. When you look at it that way, you can see that contingency is at the root of all human creativity, and by a kind of "backward analogy," of divine creativity itself.
I actually got to thinking about this problem over my vacation. And noticed in passing that even the physical laws are contingent in the sense that they have absolutely no purchase on concrete events or the explanation of reality absent space, time, and matter. If these three aren't there, then physical laws cannot come into effect in the first place.
And then, assuming such criteria are satisfied such that physical laws have putative purchase, they are still contingent in yet a second sense: not all configurations of phenomena will completely fit into the prescribed categories of the physical laws. Some events -- probably "atypical ones," statistically speaking -- will happen that cannot be described in terms of the physical laws. And precisely this class of physical event -- that is, an event that does not itself perfectly satisfy the criteria by which a physical law can apply, and thus cannot satisfy the expectation or prediction of a relevant physical law -- will most likely be considered as not having even occurred in the first place. That is, the idea of physical law -- as any other type of "law" -- fits certain cases but not all cases. But what tends to happen is the cases that do not fit are forgotten, disposed of, dropped out of memory.
And so I think the description of reality must lose something by way of this method, in principle.
However, I will also say that precisely this method of law contingently relating to its proper objects has been the key creative source of all knowledge and progress throughout millennial human history.
Which just goes to suggest that there is an "ontological gap" in human existence, between existence itself (immanence) and being (transcendence). Or to put it more crudely, this particular gap is precisely what we have called contingency in the above.
For the idea struck me that this contingency is precisely the "place" where the divine "leaks" into the world of human existential experience. And, that being the case, can reach to us and affect us personally.
Such an hypothesis can go a long way to explain the miraculous -- those contingent events which do not fit the picture of physical law. But more importantly for present purposes it seems to me, the idea of contingency explains a great deal about the texture of human day-to-day existence. New and unpredictable things are ever arising in ways that actually affect our life, with or without our personal knowledge and quite possibly from non-local sources.
I'll stop here. Seems like a good place to stop. Though there is more to say on this subject, I'm glad to hear other people's views on the matter....
Thank you, Brother A, for raising the really sticky issue, as usual. :^)
-- Dr. Keyes profoundly lacks political skills.
And more's the pity for that. For in my view, here we have a man who is (IMHO) a world-class thinker, who has thoroughly mastered the philosophy and intent of the U.S. Constitution --
The "political skill" Keyes most lacks, [IMHO], is the ability to convince his peers that he "has thoroughly mastered the philosophy and intent of the U.S. Constitution"..
He is in favor of amending our Constitution to allow prohibitions on 'non-traditional' marriage & abortion, just for starters.
Constitutional philosophy is NOT in favor of infringing upon unenumerated rights with prohibitive decrees that ignore due process of law.
Thank you so much for that excellent essay post! I love the reasoning and find it very much like Plato's metaxy. Your thoughts on comparing the contingent and metaxy would be much appreciated.
One way of viewing this is that space/time is created as the universe expands (energy). One could also view it as space/time expanding created the energy. Moreover, in addition to these physical considerations one must also consider information as a contingent event which has an effect in physical laws and constants.
IMHO, these are among the neon signs written in nature declaring that God is!
The original audio simply confirms Keyes' status as an out-of-work teacher.
Oh, I think he could choose from many academic jobs. But leaving his position as a university president is probably indicative that he wants to see how he could be more influential for the cause.
Substance over style, t. Substance over style.
with prohibitive decrees that ignore due process of law.
Funny, I thought that the Constitution provided ways for people to amend it by due process of its law.
Indeed, Brother A. Yet it is enormously difficult to amend the constitution. If a proposed amendment were to succeed, that would likely mean that it has enormous popular support from "We the People" -- that is, broad social consensus behind it.
And it seems to me that, in the case of the gay marriage question, if the broad society wants to defend its historical values, traditions, and way of life against "social innovations" that tend to undermine them, then constitutional amendment is the tool the Framers provided. Again, it would require a very broad consensus to pass such an amendment.
I know my friend tpaine is ever vigilent about preventing the "tyranny of the majority," lest the government despoil the unalienable rights of the individual. I just don't see how the willful destruction of pre-born human life could possibly be an unenumerated human right. And gays are not now being deprived of their right to marry -- they just choose not to, if it means marrying a member of the opposite sex, which is what marriage does require. Indeed, that is the meaning of the word.
Rather than exclusively focus on the tyranny of the majority, it seems to me that in our own time, we need to recognize that there is such a thing as "tyranny of the minority" -- e.g., activist judges, progressivist interest groups, etc. -- and about the only defense the people have against that, it seems to me, is a constitutional amendment.
FWIW.
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