As I mentioned in my previous post, the dinner for the CLC tonight featured a speech by recent presidential aspirant Dr. Alan Keyes. Keyes has operated on the fringes of the Republican Party for years, although he took on Barack Obama in 2004 as the party’s nominee in an ill-considered and mostly embarrassing carpetbagging run for the Senate in Illinois. Just a few weeks ago he declared his candidacy for the GOP nomination, but has garnered little interest, and was not invited to the Dearborn presidential debate this week.
I have never heard Keyes speak in person, although I have heard him on many television appearances, usually in shoutfests on cable news. Until tonight, I have never experienced the powerful oratory of a man who may well be the modern master of the form. Watching Keyes dominate the stage and thunder, whisper, muse, and cajole his message to the CLC’s convocation felt like being transported back decades, perhaps even a century, to when public oration determined the measure of the public man.
Keyes’ oration, however, felt troubling and at times even dangerous. It’s not that I didn’t agree with the basic message of his speech, which was that America has lost its thread to the core and genesis of liberty. In fact, Dinesh D’Souza makes the same argument in his book, What’s So Great About Christianity?, only D’Souza manages to make it with a lot less demagoguery than Keyes manages. The genius of the Declaration, and later its influence on the Constitution, came in the recognition of natural rights that flowed from man’s relation to his Creator. Eliminate the Creator, and humans become nothing more than mere organisms that have no claim to any rights as a natural function of their being, and instead must rely on the mercy of his fellow men and the governments they create to bestow or deny these rights. D’Souza makes this connection very carefully, through reasoned argument and historical exposition, to underscore a somewhat different point than Keyes.
As readers might imagine, Keyes attacked the other Republicans in the race for betraying this understanding — an attack made somewhat more uncomfortable given Duncan Hunter’s attendance at this dinner. For the most part, he attacked the front-runners, and those attacks related to abortion. Keyes argued that Mitt Romney had admitted he didn’t tell the truth about the sanctity of life while Governor of Massachussetts; that Giuliani had supported abortion and gay marriage in New York City; and that Fred Thompson had not lifted a finger to oppose abortion while in or out of office.
Had he stopped there, Keyes would have remained in the bounds of honest political discourse. However, Keyes went much farther than that, but it takes some explanation. He made an intriguing claim that the preamble of the Constitution forbids abortion in its mandate to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”. In this, Keyes claims to have found the language forbidding abortion that Justice Blackmun insisted he sought during Roe, because “posterity” refers to those yet to come — which would include unborn children necessarily. Websters defines “posterity” as “the offspring of one progenitor to the furthest generation” and “all future generations,” and Keyes says the framers understood exactly what they meant when they wrote that passage.
With that understanding, Keyes engaged in some jaw-dropping demagoguery. He claimed that Giuliani’s pro-choice standing put him in the “pro-slavery position”. That’s ridiculous on its face. First, the language of the preamble did not forbid slavery; it took the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to accomplish that. Second, in no way could anyone accuse Giuliani of being “pro-slavery”. It’s as though Keyes read the Constitution and decided that one has to go all the way to Z as a consequence of moving from A to B. It’s absurd.
After that, he talked about Mitt Romney being “the devil with the mask on,” and Rudy as “the devil with the mask off.” Fred Thompson wears masks, too, because he made a living as an actor. Don’t talk about Reagan being an actor, though, because Keyes says that Reagan had “character” while Thompson does not. How he makes this distinction, Keyes didn’t elaborate, but it seems somewhat daft considering Reagan was an actor by training, while Fred’s acting career was a lark that paid off.
Devils and traitors populate Keyes’ world to a degree not known by most rational people. In the real world, however, Keyes’ targets are human beings with foibles and faults not unlike our own. And this is the difference between real political debate and dishonest demagoguery. In demonizing his opponents, Keyes makes it impossible to actually debate policy. These men are not demons, but people with positions that differ from Keyes — and Keyes essentially runs away from the debate by calling them devils and scaring his audience into visceral reactions rather than inspiring reasoned and rational thought.
I was impressed with and dismayed by Keyes in equal measures. I also have to say that I was a distinct minority in the room. I did notice that Keyes had the good sense to avoid accusing Duncan Hunter of being the devil, at least not by name, although I’m not certain whether Keyes knew that Hunter was in attendance. I suspect that Hunter would not have sat quietly for that kind of demagoguery aimed explicitly at him.
29 thoughts on “CLC 07: The Talented — And Troubling — Dr. Keyes”
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Before Roe, it was not uncommon for Catholic women to seek out gynecologists who would remove their perfectly healthy uterus’es. Just to stop having children! Women would be 32 years old. And, they’d be castrated. And, go into menopause. Because they did not have access to sensible birth controls. PERIOD.
The early 1970’s saw legalization of abortion in California, two years before ROE came down the pike! Ronald Reagan signed it into law! You think hollywood wasn’t discussing the ramifications of unwanted pregancies? Who are you trying to fool?
Then, of course, we got the PILL.
But first? In the 1950’s the church had worked at keeping bars closed on sundays. So the traffic to church would be secured. (In today’s world? You don’t get that guarantee! Nor do you have the “blue laws” anymore, either.) Wal-Mart closed that loophole!
Wal-Mart opened stores OUTSIDE of the jurisdictions of cities, just to be able to be open on Sundays. And, people in cars came in droves.
And, then? Margaret Sanger was JAILED for fitting a woman with a diaphram!
You know, the idea that sex can be treated as something “forbidden,” has been hosted by religions for melinnia.
But America is WE THE PEOPLE. Not “go ask the king.” Or go get permission from the religous guardians.
To say nothing of Wide-Stance Larry; and how he fooled the people of Idaho. Unless, you think they’re just thrilled to pieces to have a lying piece of crap like that, as their senator.
Gosh, it’s enough we have a war on weed. Where what people smoke got to be criminalized, because there was a big business interest involved. Tobacco.
Lincoln was right. You can’t fool all of the people all of the time. People have just wised up.
And, they’ve gotten used to seeing condoms sold in front of your nose. Not having to be hidden away by pharmacists. Where asking for a package used to embarass young men. (Maybe, even old men, too.)
Anyway, more people will vote for Hillary, before they vote for what the social conservatives want.
And, if this wasn’t true, the republicans wouldn’t have found themselves in such a pickle, when the Bonkeys went “south” with affirmative action.
Really. Buy a clue!
Well, much as I like you for a diner companion there at the CLC, I have to disagree with you to some extent, Ed.
My report on the appearneces of Mitt Romney, Duncan Hunter and Alan Keyes at the CLC conference can be seen at Publius’ Forum. My full comments on Keyes and the others is a little too long to put here, but here is my chief disagreement… and I hope you don’t mind if I quote myself:
“The word ‘Posterity’ explains that abortion is anti-American, anti-Constitutional as far as Keyes sees it. After all, our posterity is our progeny, our children. And if the Founders wanted to assure that our posterity had their liberties protected by that document, then abortion must be illegal under the Constitution. After all, how can we bestow liberty on our posterity if we have aborted them in the womb? (It should also be remembered that abortion was certainly illegal in those days)
Here is where I disagree with Ed Morrissey and agree with Keyes. Words, it turns out, mean things. And words were the very tools of creation that the Founders used to assure that very liberty that Ambassador Keyes is talking about. They worried about punctuation, they worried about structure, they debated for months over many of those words. I believe that the Founders would see the logic in Ambassador Keyes’ position and would commend him for the interpretation.
Morrissey is right, though, that Keyes might be a tad ‘dangerous’ in his thinking. But, we may be approaching a day when a bit of danger is the right prescription for what ills are infecting the US.
And, if Morrissey were to go back to the days of the American Revolution, I’d suspect that he condemn each and every one of our Founders for their equally demagogic speech… no for their even more dangerous speech than Keyes’. Compared to the Founders rhetoric, Alan Keyes is practically a pussycat.”
So, where you see “danger” — and dangerous it is to call for an virtual uprising of concerned citizens — I see what is fast becoming a last option. Keyes wasn’t advocating for armed rebellion, but for a concerned citizenry to take back what is ours. And to that I agree 100%. If that is “danger” then so be it.
I used to listen to Keyes back in the ’90’s when he subbed for such as Rush Limbaugh, and was an occassional pundit on TV news, and I thought he was one of the most well-spoken and brilliant men I’d ever heard in my life, and had his background info all i’s dotted and t’s crossed.
And then one day he signed up to run for public office and on that very day, seemed to have absolutely lost his mind.
It has all been very sad, since then.
Posted by Warner Todd Huston | October 13, 2007 1:43 AM
MEGA DITTOS!
Eliminate the Creator, and humans become nothing more than mere organisms that have no claim to any rights as a natural function of their being, and instead must rely on the mercy of his fellow men and the governments they create to bestow or deny these rights.
Mr. D’Souza’s brainiac powers notwithstanding, tying moral values to the Christian story is a loosing argument. Or better, is the argument in the long process of loosing in the marketplace of ideas. It is simply an objective fact that since David Strauss’ Life of Jesus Critically Examined in 1837, a rational, non-magical examination of the bible stories has, in each succeeding generation, convinced more and more people that the bible stories are myths. You may be convinced Jebus is real, others are not.
And because conservative understanding ties moral values with the bible myths, when the myths are lost the values are lost too. Postmodernism is in effect the creation of conservatives’ stubborn superstition that the Christian myths are true.
Look how far bible based conservatism has sunk. A hundred years ago conservatives would have argued that the bible is literally true. Now they’re reduced to the logical equivalent of PROPOSITION: If laetrile doesn’t cure cancer, Steve McQueen will surely die. CONCLUSION: Laetrile cures cancer. Wishes and needs are not reasons, as the late Mr. McQueen and his fans discovered.
Moral values can be maintained in two ways.
1. Attacking postmodernism’s logical contradictions and moral failings.
2. Constructing a theory of morality that does not depend on magic stories.
I’d have to have seen the speech in person, but I will say I don’t trust your characterization of it. I’m certainly not calling you a liar, but I don’t think you will have grasped many of the spiritual points Keyes was making.
Keyes wouldn’t be my first choice… but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t speak uncomfortable, if dramatic and hard to see in the physical realm, truths once in a while.
You talk about Guiliani and slavery. Again, I’d have had to see it. I argue many times (and it’s a common, even mainstream pro-life position) that abortion is as evil as slavery and the arguments against both are the same: personhood.
So you may have understood Keyes accurately or you may not have. I’d have had to see it.
I think Guiliani is dangerous and an authoritarian control-freak by nature, so he could be right even there. Certainly, he is no friend to unborn children. On the other hand, I agree with him on many issues and if kept in check, may be better than the other anti-life authoritarian control-freak, Hillary Clinton.
It’s a tough world. Keyes could never get elected. Whether he’s a madman or a starkly truthful Godly man, either one would take him out of contention for electoral victory.
I agree verbatim:
Interesting that D’Sousa and Keyes would make a tie between the Declaration of Independence and Christianity, given that Jefferson was not a Christian.
I worked for an overseas U.S. Embassy for three years. During that time, I learned that there was an interesting “urban legend” surrounding Alan Keyes. The story was relayed to me by an “old school” FSO who claimed to have personal knowledge of the story. He claimed to be a witness. He recounted the story at least twice and none of his colleagues challenged his claim.
It goes like this: When Keyes was one of Reagan’s reps to the UN, he was holding a conference with a delegation of several African country’s representatives (all black). According to my State Department pal, the delegates got “uppity” and started making unreasonable demands of the U.S. which got Keyes riled up pretty fierce. His furry peaked when one of the delegates suggested that since Keyes was descendant from black Africans, he should “understand”. According to the legend, Keyes fired back something like this: “Slavery was the best thing that happened to me and my family…if it weren’t for slavery, we would still be stuck in Africa living under corrupt dictators and their lackeys.” The “lackey” comment was made while looking them right in the eyes…
I can’t help thinking that the gist of this legend is true. If so, earlier commenters are definitely right about Dr Keyes…he’s a “dangerous” man.
I was an Illinois Republican when Keyes ran against Obama and was more than eager to listen to his oratory. I was impressed with his skillfull use of language and tone which is, as Ed rightly puts it, reminiscent of the great orators of the past century.
Unfortunately Mr. Keyes is a bit of a loon which overshadows his brilliance to the point of making him uncomfortable to listen to.
I remember listening to a speech he gave (I don’t remember the subject offhand) and though I was enthralled I found myself tensely waiting for the moment when I would inwardly cringe, knowing that he had just lost most of his audience with some outrageous claim of fact. It was psychologically painful tp witness.
I suspect that Hunter would not have sat quietly for that kind of demagoguery aimed explicitly at him.
I think one of the reasons politics is becoming increasingly corrosive is that so many sat silently for that kind of demagoguery at all – regardless of where it was aimed.
Does anyone still take Alan Keyes seriously? He’s a howling loon and a raving bigot (remember how he disowned his own daughter after she came out as a lesbian?). As far as the GOP is concerned, he’s the proverbial mad aunt in the attic who should be kept as far away from the limelight as possible.
“The word ‘Posterity’ explains that abortion is anti-American, anti-Constitutional” Utter bilge. Claptrap and nonsense. It is certain the founders of our federal government were not thinking of an issue which would have been dealt with at the time under the common law of the states when writing our Constitution. They had bigger fish to fry. No one with half a brain is going to buy your explanation.
It is certain the founders of our federal government were not thinking of an issue which would have been dealt with at the time under the common law of the states when writing our Constitution.
True–as with any other murder.
Mr. Smyth-Worthington said:
[B]ecause conservative understanding ties moral values with the bible myths, when the myths are lost the values are lost too.
I’m afraid yours is a widely held view, so it’s worth pointing out that the move to de-mythologize Christianity wasn’t so much an expose by modern intellectuals as it was a consequence of the Reformation, wherein the authority to interpret scripture was displaced from the Church to the University. I can’t enter the details on a comment thread like this, but you ought to understand that Christians themselves called for de-mythologization (not without controversy of course). So you oughtn’t portray it as Christians getting “busted” telling tales. It was Christians themselves who wished to separate the allegorical and typological elements of the Bible from the historical elements so they could have a clearer understanding of God’s purposes.
Having said that, I would add that Catholics like me believe Protestants conceded, or gave away, something quite important in abandoning the allegorical and typological meanings. When you read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, you can’t miss that there is a moral layer of meaning embedded in the story itself. The novel’s not about adultery. It’s about America. We believe these moral the layers of meaning are objective principles of narrative because they are objective principles of the universe created by God. So it’s no surprise that principles of morality are found in all literature, including and especially the Bible. Deconstructing the narrative doesn’t make the moral law, or Jesus Christ, disappear. The de-mythologizers have the cause and effect arrow pointing in the wrong direction. The scriptures are on the receiving end of a sovereign, natural, moral law. Therefore, much as one would like, one can’t refute the universal natural law by applying historico-critical analysis to the Judeo-Christian scriptures.
Dr. Keyes has a great gift of communicating through speech and debate forums. It is too bad he so misuses his gift. He seems to become mesmerized by the sound of his own speech, more interested in his own elation than in convincing his audience. The end result is his slide from leader to loser.
Re: Angus – October 13, 2007 4:49 AM
Not to defend Alan Keyes (who’s become a full-blown nut,) but just to correct the record on Jefferson:
From:
The Founders Intended A Christian, Not Secular, Society
By Michael Medved, Wednesday, October 3, 2007
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichaelMedved/2007/10/03/the_founders_intended_a_christian,_not_secular,_society
The federalist party ticket in 08 Richard Cheney and Clarence Thomas. What do you all have to lose. Why not finally just stick to your principles and not support a candidate that doesn’t share your reverent belief in the sanctity of life which begins at conception? You water down your holiest of principles by railing against the Left and it’s devils and traitors, while accepting representation that really isn’t that far off philosophically from the Lefts position on this critical position. Ranting hysterical pro-lifers fighting so boldly for the unborn, but willing to accept a pro-choice candidate. Where’s the credibility here? There’s none. Regardless of whether you agree or not, Al Gore could run on a green ticket as a SINGLE ISSUE CAMPAIGN PLATFORM and probably win, even at this point. I’d thoroughly have more respect for the pro-life movement as a political entity if they’d just bring some walk with their talk. You all are going to have a sad sinking feeling come the day after election day and HRC is the new CIC. and you say to yourselves”We voted for a pro-choice republican and he still lost to the Democrats”. You loose twice in my book. Go for it. Draft your own candidate, Cheney,Thomas 08, Federalist Pro-Life……
Alan Keyes loves the sound of his own voice, to be sure, but I think he goes off the rails because he believes to the core of his being in the correctness of his logic. As a result, he doesn’t seem to recognize when he is reaching a reductio ad absurdum, and he continues the argument.
Abortion is a form of slavery. Keyes is correct. How is the absolute mastery of the mother over her unborn child’s continued humanity under the current law any different than the absolute mastery of an owner over the humans he/she owns under the old law? When the life or death of a person is determined at the will of another private person, that is certainly slavery. So we have that abortion is just one of a class of acts called slavery.
Once that tautology is established, Keyes has very little distance further to go in making his accusation with regard to Giuliani stick:
a) Giuliani supports abortion
b) abortion is a type of slavery
c) Therefore, Giuliani supports slavery. Q.E.D.
Keyes’ constitutional position is absolutely correct as well. particularly with regard to the Framers. To fully understand this position, read Abraham Lincoln’s Coopers Union Address. Abraham Lincoln was a first rate constitutional scholar, and his analysis that at least 21 of the 39 signers of the Constitution proved by their words and acts that they abhorred slavery is a prima facie argument that the Framers intended to limit slavery, and would have abolished it were it in their power to do so. This certainly matches Keyes’ argument. That the right to hold slaves and indentured servants was an integral part of the Constitution says reams about the compromises that were made in the forging of our Union. The presence of slavery in the Constitution indicates that Union was more important than certain individual rights at that point in history to these Framers, but that their utopian viewpoint as expressed in the Preamble actually applied to all people, as expressed by their later acts.
His “progeny” argument seems weak, but certainly, once one accepts the scientific position that a human being begins at conception (actually the words “beginning” and “conception” have identical meanings), that being is covered by the “progeny” word as well.
I’m not partial to all of Keyes’ positions, but this one is absolutely spot on. To deny it is to deny Abraham Lincoln’s writings of 146 years ago.
Ummm, unclesmrgol, abortion isn’t slavery unless the mother is making her unborn child do sit-ups in the womb, in which case it is.
The arguments against both are the same: The right of the person.
If blacks are people, owning them is bad, and if unborn babies are people, killing them is bad.
There is the connection between the two. But they aren’t the same thing. That’s absurd.
I do agree Guiliani supporting abortion is equally bad as Jefferson Davies supporting slavery (or slightly worse because one is murder, while the other, horrific, is captivity). But they are not identical.
So what I’m basically saying, Ed:
… is Guilianii is not pro-slavery, obviously, but on the abortion issue, his views are as bad or worse than pro-slavery.
Further, the arguments against abortion and slavery are basically identical.
“Keyes’ oration, however, felt troubling and at times even dangerous. It’s not that I didn’t agree with the basic message of his speech….”
This contradiction does not hold up to scrutiny.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and suggest that the uneasiness described after listening to Alan Keyes is due his uniqueness as a political figure. We are all accustomed to soothing Huckabees, uninspiring Thompsons, and mealymouthed Romneys. Alan Keyes, on the other hand, is an open book, and unafraid to unabashedly speak the straight truth.
The real danger is electing a politician who hides his true beliefs.
Conservatives have everything they want in Alan Keyes. If that’s too hot to handle, be happy with the Democrat-lite the others are spoonfeeding.
christoph,
the equivalence (abortion as a subset of slavery) is as follows:
a) with slavery, a person (owner) owns people (slaves). with abortion, the mother owns her child.
b) with slavery, the master determines the level of humanity with which the people he/she owns are treated, up to and including imposing death upon a slave. with abortion, the mother, at her wish, confers upon the child any state from full freedom to death.
The base concept in slavery is the human as property, and only secondarily (but not necessarily) the economic benefits of one person owning the work of another.
That is why a child born to a slave, while not yet able to work or to be of any other economic benefit to the owner, may be killed if the owner does not wish to “support” him/her, or sold to another slave owner. The child is property, to be disposed of as the owner wishes.
With abortion, the unborn child is also property, to be disposed of as the mother wills.
Similarity not equivalence.
christoph,
All slavery is not abortion, since abortion is a subset of slavery (i.e., there are types of slavery that do not involve abortion). But all abortions are slavery, because the person to be aborted is considered property, to be disposed of as the mother wishes.
It doesn’t get any clearer than that, unless you have a different definition of slavery than my “person is a possession” one.
Nonesense. The similarity is they both disrespect the natural rights of the individual.
However, killing isn’t the same as owning. If a person gets in a fight with a guy at the bar, walks back to his pick-up, gets a gun, goes back and shoots him… is that slavery?
Come on. There’s a difference.
Slavery (captivity with all its added on mistreatment) and abortion (murder) are both evil. Abortion is worse.
Look, by your definition, a serial killer who took someone captive and felt they “owned” them — not unlike what serial killers believe since they’re psychopaths — and made them do chores, sexual slavery, etc., for a while is a slave owner in addition to other crimes like rape. And I see the argument. It’s rational.
But, when the serial killer finally kills the captive, they are merely a particularly bad slave handler?
Not all the signers bought the Creator angle–a committee inserted the term into Jefferson’s draft for propaganda purposes–which have been successful down to the present day, I see.