Posted on 02/09/2008 1:01:01 AM PST by Kurt Evans
Weaving a patchwork rhetoric of conservative politics and biblical allegories, Republican presidential candidate Alan Keyes urged Lubbock residents Monday evening to consider their religious morals the next time they exercise their rights to vote.
During his speech at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in south Lubbock, Keyes addressed his political and moral beliefs concerning, among other things, taxation, immigration, abortion, health care and governmental spending to an audience of parishioners and local residents.
Democracy, he said, is best conducted by those who are willing to acknowledge that the inherent power of God rests at the heart of a democratic society. The democratic process works because God grants voters their voice.
Democratic voice, Keyes said, exists "on the authority of the almighty God." The line between politics and religion has divided the two for too long, and the United States suffers because of voters' reluctance to apply their morals to their political beliefs.
The key to immigration reform, he said, lies in the biblical teachings that boundaries help define the people within them and gives them a sense of place, which is a notion lost in contemporary North America. Without secure borders and the boundaries they produce, safeguarding American people from terrorism cannot be accomplished.
"(If you) don't respect the boundaries, (you) don't respect the very prerequisite of our existence," he said. "It appears to a lot of people that our elites decided we don't need boundaries."
Illegal immigrants, furthermore, bring with them communicable diseases and moral turpitude, Keyes said, which is a result of voters' inability to express their need for definitive boundaries. Upon arriving in the United States, illegal immigrants do not seek economic opportunities alone. Regarding immigration, Americans are "losing control."
Rampant abortion, he said, attests to the morally inept state of the country. The constitutional rights of children in the womb are neglected each time they are aborted. Unborn children are not "stones in the road" that can be "kicked aside and pulverized."
Supreme Court justices who granted the legality of abortion in Roe v. Wade overstepped their bounds as judges, Keyes said, because they established an unconstitutional precedent.
Later in his speech, Keyes called Barack Obama a "champion of baby killing." Criminalizing abortion not only will protect mothers and babies, but also the moral state of the United States.
Income tax also is a violation of personal liberties, he said, because it takes money from workers without their say. If elected president, Keyes said he would abolish the Federal Income Tax, which would restore the people's right to their own earnings. The U.S. income tax system is "incompatible" with the notion of liberty.
"The government doesn't have any money that doesn't belong to us in the first place," he said.
The loss in revenue would not be too detrimental, he said, because welfare programs also exemplify the government's overstepping of its bounds by deciding how much money is donated to what cause.
Unnecessary government welfare programs even restrict Christians from donating on their own accord by taking that extra income from them before they have the opportunity to give it to others, Keyes said.
"When the money is coerced out of your pocket," he said, "we are deprived of the opportunity to do this charity."
Acknowledging the unlikelihood of his election, Keyes said he is calling upon the people of Texas to stand up for their morals, vote for him and allow God the chance to perform a "miracle."
Through his grassroots campaigning, he said he is giving voters another option that will not leave them bereft of morality because they voted for the lesser of two evils.
Tim Garbett, a graduate student from Plano who attended the speech, said he has been following Keyes' political career through his candidacy in the last two presidential elections. Though he said Keyes probably will not win, the United States would be a better place with him in office.
"To me, the primary issue are the Supreme Court justices and the pro-life issues," he said. "I think he would greatly contribute to the pro-life efforts. There is good reason to believe that."
Lawrence D'Souza, a parishioner at Holy Spirit and an acquaintance of Keyes who helped organize Monday's "revival rally," agreed with Garbett in that Keyes would make this country a better place if he were to be elected.
Concluding his speech, Keyes asked audience members to use their prayers, work and lives toward the implementation of a "godly, conscientious vote."
Let Ambassador Keyes debate:
http://www.alankeyes.com/
He's recovered from his aphasia, I presume. With a little more therapy he should be able to speak without having to travel all that way from home.
Alan Keyes is a great man. I will always be an admirer of his.
Keyes? That old snowball in hell line comes to mind.
ping
Yaaawwwn
I am not a supporter of Keyes but his candidacy does present a problem for the credibility of Freepers.
Freepers are complaining loudly about McCain and how that they could never vote for such a liberal politician. Freepers are whining that they would rather stay home rather than vote for a candidate who does not stand for their values and policy positions. Freepers say that they would rather allow Clinton or Obama win and send a message to the GOP that they can’t be ignored in 2012 if the GOP wants to regain the White House.
It seems to me that if Freepers really sincere in their convictions (rather than just wanting to be whiners) they would send a message by supporting Alan Keyes. They would be working overtime to get votes and delegates for Keyes.
How are Freepers going to coax a REAL conservative to run for President in 2012 if they don’t show RIGHT NOW that they are willing to sacrifice and labor for a conservative candidate like Keyes or Paul?
Are you going to whine or work?
Alan Keyes is the black Harold Stassen.
It’s a shame to waste a mind like his by indulging his ego.
Alan Keyes represents a major lost opportunity for conservatism. His error was in being just a candidate, instead of being a teacher and mentor to a large, next generation of black American conservatives. His candidacy should have been a recruiting tool.
In other words, as Bill Cosby crosses the US, trying to teach black Americans basic or elementary lessons in self-development and personal responsibility to achieve success, Keyes should have been doing much the same, but on a graduate level.
Based in his experiences as an international diplomat, and as an erudite spokesman for the higher realms of conservatism as a philosophy, he would have been a one man graduate school for young black conservatives who wanted positions of “brilliant authority”, like Condoleeza Rice, not just the patronized puppets they would be if sponsored by the left.
Because only with conservatives will they be able to earn the stature that their intelligence, hard work and merit deserve. Such a mentor is essential, because while white conservatives might matriculate through the traditional corridors of liberal controlled political power, like Yale, while holding their noses, the liberals will not allow conservative blacks to succeed there.
Condoleeza Rice, for example, had to graduate from the University of Colorado, before she could take a post-graduate degree from Notre Dame. And today’s future generation of black conservatives will have to follow a similar route, of both less radical leftist dominated schools and religious institutions, for that same reason.
The liberals will do anything to derail their success. And while large number of conservative blacks of great capability have already, and continue to be thwarted in their education, by liberal perfidy, those that do make it through need clear, principled guidance to understand the inordinately complex realms of international diplomacy, economics, military science and conservative philosophy they have been unfairly denied at university, and can only be taught by those with real-world experience, not just textbook theory.
Truly, his greatest service would not have been as Ambassador Keyes, but as Professor Keyes.
You are correct. A vote for Keyes is much better than staying at home or voting for the those who are left.
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