Posted on 10/22/2004 5:06:22 PM PDT by EternalVigilance
ping...
I am from Illinois but I saw the Channel 7 Keyes v Obama debate on C-SPAN last night. Alan did a fantastic job. Obama was moderately good at stating the Left Wing position. It really was one of the best debates I ever saw. I loved the way Alan suqashed that little bug Andy Shaw who always is making his trademark personal questions trying to embarrass Republicans. The best part of the debate was when they were asked about African-American issues. Keyes said that abortion was an African-American issue because 13 million black children had been killed in the last 30 years. He said that Planned Parenthood abortion clinics (money makers for some docs and staff) were disproportionately located in black neighborhoods and that the black population was now 25 percent less than what it would have been had it not been for Roe v. Wade. Clearly Obama was blown back and did not know how to respond except to say that abortion was not a civil rights issue. No other candidate but Keyes could have put Obama on the defensive the way he was last night. It was the best Keyes performance I have ever seen.
I heard part of this debate last nite; would that all debates had this level of exchange (if nothing else to expose the socialist baby-killers to daylight)
"I think that if we care about our freedom, we have to care about the moral foundations of our liberty--moral foundations that are relevant, by the way, to every practical problem we face.
In education, in health care, in our economic life, every study shows that if you allow, for instance, the breakdown of the family structure--the greatest contributing factor to poverty, to the gap in affordable housing, to the rising tide of crime and violence, to the inability, in fact, to deal with a lot of the problems that drive our young people into gangs, all are related to the breakdown of the family structure.
You know this. I know it. And yet, we don't want to talk about it. We just want to follow Barack Obama, throw some more money at the problem.
These problems become a catalyst for government spending. You know what a catalyst is--you keep doing the spending, but it doesn't affect the problem, because the root of our problem lies in the decay of our moral culture. And government has assaulted this culture with stands on abortion, with, now, an assault on the traditional family, with regulations in the social welfare programs that drove fathers out of the home and broke down the family structure.
He says, "This is not a concern of government." And yet government has, in fact, been deeply contributing to the damage that is being done to the moral culture of this country.
I think we're gonna go bankrupt if we keep paying for the consequences of moral decay, and refuse to address its causes.
That might be convenient for politicians, basing their power base on promise after promise to spend money on this one and that one. But I think, if we really care about the future, we don't want to keep burdening people with higher deficits from spending that is increasing, because the problems increase when you don't address their fundamental cause.
I believe deeply in self-government and liberty, but I don't think it's going to survive in America if we allow the continued, government-sponsored destruction of the moral identity of our people, and that is why we must give priority to addressing the underlying moral crisis that is the real cause of so many of our difficulties."
Me too.
In fact, it was the best debate performance I've ever seen from anybody.
We have to be encouraged when we have debaters like Alan Keyes, Dick Cheney and Ann Coulter on our side...
;-)
Indeed.
Obama may be a good reader of the script but he is not in Alan Keyes league as an intellect, a debater or a moralist. If it was a boxing match it would have been stopped in the second round.
Yep.
And it would have taken alot of towels to mop up the mess.
Thanks for the post!
And there is also a link to the audio portion of the debate on the front page of Renew america:
http://www.renewamerica.us
http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/speeches/audio/10_21_2004debate2.mp3
Great debate!
KEYES: Well, the truth is, the question is raised as if we have a choice. We either fight the war against terror, or the terrorists kill us. We must fight that war by carrying the war to the enemy.
What President Bush did, in going into Iraq, was take a situation where there was a probability that we were going to be attacked with weapons of mass destruction developed by Saddam Hussein, handed off to the terrorist network that he was part of, for he had provided payments, for instance, to Hamas--they work with Al Qaeda in the training camps, and so forth--all of this, he understood.
What probability was there, when he got that information? Was it fifty percent? Forty percent? Thirty percent? Ten? Well, what probability would you like, that there is going to be a chemical or biological attack against Chicago, that a weapon of mass destruction will go off and destroy the Loop?
What G. W. Bush did was what any responsible president would have to do. He acted in order to reduce that probability to zero, because when you're dealing with the situation we face right now, that is the only chance you want the American people to take.
So I think that we had no choice, and we have no choice now but to confront the terrorists where they live, to attack them before they attack us, to disrupt their lines of supply, their financial lines of supply, their training camps, and to make it clear to state sponsors of terrorism--such as Saddam Hussein was--that we are not going to tolerate their activities, and that none of them are going to be left alone.
It has clearly had an effect. Libya has backed off. Syria is talking a better game. Others are taking the lesson of our resolve, and that lesson is, even now, saving Americans from terrible disaster. It was a necessary decision, and that's what counts.
Awesome!
Thanks...
A lot of black folk are in denail about it. I've had debates with some on the streets of DC during the MArch for Life. The most common reaction is, "Really, nah I don't believe you." And my answer ia always the same. Why would I lie?
Indeed! I didn't see the debate, but just reading it here I am cheering and uplifted. Great stuff!
You all just made it worth posting, then! :-)
True story.
Years ago, in class, a fellow student (african american) told her teacher she could never vote democrat. The typical lefty professor pretended to try to be unbiased in talking about civil rights and even brought up how republicans want to tear away at welfare.
The girls response blew me away, "How the hell can I vote for a party that says it cares for my people, and then goes sticking abortion clinics in my neighborhoods but never in theres?, thats protecting my people, by keeping our numbers down?"
Our teacher got back to the subject at hand, and dismissed class something like 10 or 15 minuits early. Teach was shaken up, the student was just steaming and still looking angry.
Few are. Certainly none of the other candidates for prez in 2000. No doubt this is why the Illinois Republican party brought in Keyes. No one else was likely to outclass Obama in a debate. Alan has not disappointed...
thnx for posting that. I had wanted to read this.
My pleasure.
Enjoy!
KEYES:
"I do not say that homosexual relations is an abomination, the Bible says so. And many people in this state believe the Bible when it says so."
"And for others to imply that that belief shall now be subject to penalties of law means that we are bringing freedom of religion in this society to an end, and beginning the persecution of our Christian citizens under the law, for believing in what the Scripture tells them is true."
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