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Alan Keyes on Principles & Values

American Independent nominee for President; 2004 Republican challenger for IL Senate

 


Nominated for president by America’s Independent Party

America’s Independent Party met last night in its inaugural National Convention and chose former Reagan diplomat Alan Keyes of Maryland as its nominee for President of the US. A platform was also debated and adopted, and national officers were elected.

Since the founders of AIP are primarily long-time Keyes supporters, their opposition to Barack Obama is simply an extension of the work against the presumptive Democrat nominee that they started four years ago during the Illinois Keyes/Obama Senate race.

Source: America‘s Independent Party 2008 Platform--press release , Aug 21, 2008

Be authentic about who you are

The most important thing is to be absolutely authentic about who you are, not to say things today that contradict what you were two years ago. Not to take a stand on the most important principle that faces our nation today, the question of whether we are all created equal and endowed by our creator--not the Constitution, but our God--with our unalienable rights from the womb to the tomb, and not to abandon the heritage of the Republican Party.
Source: 2007 Des Moines Register Republican Debate , Dec 12, 2007

We don’t fight for victory; we fight for liberty & faith

The problem is, people say, “We’ve got to win,” and I think that’s true, but first we’ve got to remember that we don’t fight for victory. We fight for liberty. We fight for justice. We fight for faith. We fight for God.

And though we are beaten, and though we are defeated, time and time again, we shall rise up and go on fighting! We do not fight for victory, but we shall fight until victory is won.

Source: 2007 GOP Values Voter Presidential Debate , Sep 17, 2007

We face crisis of moral values and principles

I think we are all pretty well aware of the major challenge that’s facing our country today. I feel gratified, because even in the population that goes beyond the population of belief, it is now understood by many Americans that the greatest crisis we face is the crisis of our moral values and principles.

Sadly, I think a lot of our political leaders don’t seem to understand this. They don’t seem to understand that a country that is based, as we are, on the truth that our rights come from God cannot hope to survive unless we revive our allegiance to the existence and the authority of God.

Every issue we face, every problem we face, can be traced back to our abandonment of this principle. I believe that the time is long passed when we must hoist on high the banner of our Creator, God, and never let it fall again, though we die for it!

Source: 2007 GOP Values Voter Presidential Debate , Sep 17, 2007

We can’t remain free if we don’t acknowledge God’s authority

Q: Tell us about your personal faith, and what it means to your life.

A: I believe deeply that God is the reason why we do what we do. I think our dedication to Him and in gratitude for what He has done for us in sending our Lord, Jesus Christ, is the reason we do what we do. But I sometimes think when we ask candidates this kind of a question, we are, in a way, missing what is the more difficult point. The crisis of our time does not occur and does not exist because some individuals in our politics did not have sufficient faith in God, did not follow His path, did not say their prayer. It occurs because they do not have the guts to stand up and remind the American people that we cannot and will not remain free if we do not acknowledge the authority of God, if we do not submit to His will! It is a national question that requires that we take the passion of our faith, and with courage and without equivocation, lay ourselves on the line for that truth, no matter what the cost.

Source: 2007 GOP Values Voter Presidential Debate , Sep 17, 2007

Campaigning to raise the standard of our allegiance to God

Q: Is there a standout candidate, in your mind, in the upcoming Values Voter Debate?

A: I got a call about some kind of participation in it, and I expressed some reluctance. The organizer said, “We are building podiums for candidates. If you want, I’ll build you a podium.” I was really taken aback at this, at first. You all know I’ve been out on the hustings a number of times, and been pretty well beaten up. It has an effect on you, after a while, and it did on me, to be sure. But the more I thought about it and prayed over it, the more it seemed to me that the one thing I’ve always been called to do is just raise the standard--not to worry about anything else, but to make sure that, clearly articulated, there is the sense of this national standard of our allegiance to God and His authority that has been the foundation stone of our nation’s life. And so I finally called her back and said, “Build me a podium.” And so, I will be participating in the Values Voter Debate on Monday as a candidate.

Source: Radio interview on “Janet Parshall’s America” , Sep 14, 2007

Website donors asked to take a pledge for America’s revival

We’re going to be challenging people at our website, alankeyes.com, we’re going to be challenging folks to take a pledge for America’s revival. It’s a pledge that they will start out by giving $5, and promise, pledge, to find five other people who will join in this effort. And that will be the seed corn, as we’re calling it--the mustard seed for what needs to be built in the way of a true grassroots effort around this country, so that we won’t look at polls, we won’t look at media, we won’t look at all the phony stuff that is being done to manipulate us into different conclusions that have nothing to do with our faith, our real sense of values.

We are going to be asking that people rely on the reality of their own efforts to build the number, which will be posted on our website, and show clearly around the country who has stepped forward to take this challenge. As that number builds, that becomes the reality that can influence this country, that can determine this nation, for change.

Source: Radio interview on “Janet Parshall’s America” , Sep 14, 2007

Declares candidacy on live talk radio show

Q: So there’s no ambiguity in the hearts and minds of our listeners: You are officially declaring, today, your candidacy for President of the United States?

A: I am. I just got through sending the form in to the FEC--Form 2, that it’s called--and I am standing forward. I will raise this banner. And I’ll challenge people to step forward and understand that this is not something that I can do. That’s where we’ve gone wrong. We’ve been brainwashed into thinking that politics is something we watch on TV, while other people put together campaigns, and so forth. You know what that’s about? I’ve seen these surveys that tell us that 90% of the people in the media don’t think that God has anything to do with morality.

Q: That’s right, I’ve seen the surveys.

A: That means that we are dealing with a godless media. People need to realize that they can’t rely on the godless media and expect to come to conclusions that are consistent with God’s authority.

Source: Radio interview on “Janet Parshall’s America” , Sep 14, 2007

Top issues: Defend life; respect for God; restore character

Q: In a Keyes presidency, what would the top 3 issues be?

A: Top 3 issues are clear:

  1. We have got to restore our respect for Declaration principles by defending life, and making it clear that life begins at conception and must be respected, from that moment, as the will of the Creator, because that’s what the Declaration establishes as our principle, and what the Constitution says we owe to our “posterity.”
  2. The restoration of our allegiance to and respect for God’s authority, especially when it comes to clear moral decisions like marriage, where we need to restore the sense that the God-given family is an unalienable right.
  3. And finally, I would be trying to restore the moral character and sense of our commitment to our basic moral values, starting in the area of national sovereignty, both in terms of our security from terrorism, and especially the security of our borders, and our assertion of the sovereignty of the American people, which our elites have been betraying.
Source: Radio interview on “Janet Parshall’s America” , Sep 14, 2007

Great principles at stake: marriage & innocent life

What shocked me most was a line I read in a letter that Mr. Obama had sent to Jack Ryan that said there was no great issue of principles here like there were in the great debates between Lincoln and Douglass. I think that showed a lack of understanding in the issues at stake in this race on issues like abortion. I think these are among the most important issues in the race, dealing with the notion that we are endowed by our creator with unalienable rights. That is what’s at stake in this election as it was in that great election that was the dividing line between Lincoln and Douglass in 1858. I stand for the defense of innocent life. I stand for the principle of traditional marriage. I stand for those great great principles that Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass espoused as they fought against great injustices. In the black community the number one taker of black life is abortion, more than AIDS, more than homicide. This is the practical truth of the moral situation we’re in.
Source: Illinois Senate Debate #3: Barack Obama vs. Alan Keyes , Oct 21, 2004

Core values: life, liberty, faith, family, freedom

Dear Friends,

Thank you so very much for your calls, letters, and emails urging me to accept the Illinois Republican Party’s nomination for the United States Senate. I am humbled and honored by your overwhelming pledges of support in this endeavor. After careful deliberation, and on the strength of deep and contemplative prayer, I have decided to accept this nomination.

I make to the voters of Illinois, and all those watching this race in the coming months, just one promise:

Source: 2004 Senate campaign website www.Keyes2004.com, “Issues” , Aug 9, 2004

Strengthen the foundations of political liberty

On political priorities:

I aim to strengthen the foundations of political liberty in America. I believe that it remains the destiny of the American people to uphold the right of all humankind to practice responsible self-government. Dedication to this Providential purpose is the heart and soul of what it means to be an American. I will labor to:

Source: Organizational website, RenewAmerica.us, “On The Issues” , Aug 3, 2004

Christianity best; but Declaration of Independence will do

As a free people, our way of life depends upon certain moral ideas. As a matter of personal conscience, I believe that Christianity most perfectly embodies those ideas. But since Americans come from many different religious backgrounds, in dealing with issues of public policy we must derive these ideas from sources that are open to support from all the people.

Nothing meets this purpose more completely than the principles and logic of our own Declaration of Independence, so I have made it the explicit basis for dealing with the moral crisis we now face. The Declaration is fundamentally a statement of the principles of justice that define the moral identity of the American people.

We have forgotten the principle that ou rights come from God. You can’t have it both ways. Either our rights come from God, as our Declaration of Independence says, or they come from human choice. If they come from human choice, then our whole way of life is meaningless, it has no foundation.

Source: Organizational website, RenewAmerica.us, “On The Issues” , Aug 3, 2004

America’s problems rooted in moral decline

America’s most pressing problems are rooted in the decline of our moral identity. Crime, rampant illegitimacy, the deteriorating environment in many of our schools--all these can be traced to lack of respect for moral principle. Since we are in the throes of a national moral identity crisis, we can no longer follow leaders for whom the moral challenge facing this nation is an afterthought. We need leaders who can articulate a principled vision of who we are and aspire to be.
Source: Organizational website, RenewAmerica.us, “On The Issues” , Aug 3, 2004

Black liberal leadership are a generation of toadies

Q: The NAACP are trying to get the president to go speak with them, but yet in an ad, they refer to Republicans as the neo-fascist “white people’s party.”

A: The black liberal leadership for some decades now have abandoned the fate of the black community to the likes of people who have supported policies that have destroyed the black family, that support abortion. We’re looking at a generation of toadies--people who essentially are self-serving. They’re doing what’s necessary to keep their position in a liberal and socialist left-wing establishment that has been devastating for the black community. The president ought to go, issue by issue, through things like gay marriage and abortion, where this black leadership stands in opposition to the God-believing heart of many, many people in the black community, and he ought to confront them with the fact that they are out of step with the faith and decent values of many people in the black community.

Source: Interview on Hannity & Colmes , Jul 12, 2004

Anything the government gives you destroys your liberty

People who call themselves Christians, who profess faith, who profess patriotism - we sat back and let it happen. We could make the difference, but we won’t take a stand. We could make a difference, but we won’t vote according to the moral conscience that God puts within us. Instead, we listen to people who say, “I’m gonna cut your taxes.” “I’m gonna give you more welfare.” “I’m gonna give you more jobs.” Anything the government gives you is just another link in the chains that destroy your liberty.
Source: Rally for the Ten Commandments, Hillsdale, Michigan , Feb 7, 2004

Separation of church and state is phony and is a weapon

The separation of church and state is claimed to be found in the Constitution. With respect to this phony doctrine of separation, they have turned our reverence for law into a weapon against our reverence for God. It is time we awaken to this fraud and reassert the truth that was right there to be seen in all our beginnings when our Founders declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.”
Source: Rally in Blairsville, Georgia , Oct 21, 2003

The real outsider for conservative Republicans

Q: As a candidate, are you and outsider or an insider? A: I was so far outside this process at one point that the last cycle when we held this debate I wasn’t allowed to participate in it. The only reason I’m sitting here right now is because I articulate better than most anybody in this country what’s on the heart of real Republicans and real conservatives around the country, and because I have been out there, not fighting in Washington, but fighting at the grass roots.
Source: GOP Debate on the Larry King Show , Feb 15, 2000

Bring God back into the White House

Q: How specifically would you as president improve the dignity of the Oval Office and restore the moral excellence of our great nation? A: I think we ought to stop kidding ourselves here. That wasn’t Bill Clinton’s problem. It was our problem. And our problem is that we have turned our back on the fundamental premise of this nation’s life, that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the authority of God.
Source: GOP Debate in Johnston, Iowa , Jan 16, 2000

Address moral crisis or lose our liberty

After all these years of Bill Clinton, I think it’s pretty clear this nation’s in the worst moral crisis that it’s ever faced. We must address that crisis as a matter of top priority, or we’re going to lose our liberty. I believe that that is, in fact, the foremost, indeed the only challenge we face right now if we’re going to survive.
Source: Republican Debate at Dartmouth College , Oct 29, 1999

Core Beliefs Based on ‘Unalienable Rights’

I believe that we face what is essentially one moral challenge which manifests itself in many areas. Simply stated, that challenge has to do with the corruption of our understanding of freedom, which leads to the abandonment of respect for law and individual responsibility, the twin pillars which ought to undergird true freedom.
Source: Keyes2000.org/issues/ “Core Beliefs” , Jan 9, 1999

Moral bases come from Christianity via Declaration

As a free people, our way of life depends upon certain moral ideas. I believe that Christianity most perfectly embodies those ideas. But since Americans come from many different religious backgrounds, we must derive these ideas from sources that are open to support from all the people. Nothing meets this purpose more completely than the principles and logic of our own Declaration of Independence, so I have made it the explicit basis for dealing with the moral crisis we now face.
Source: Keyes2000.org/issues/ “Core Beliefs” , Jan 9, 1999

Reverence for God is foundation of justice & citizenship

The Declaration is more than just an assertion of rights. It also makes a clear statement about the ultimate source of authority which commands respect for those rights.God, the Creator, is that source. Thus the effective prerequisite for human rights is respect for God’s authority and His eternal laws. If we accept the logic of our Declaration of Independence, this reverence for God is not just a matter of religious faith. It is the foundation of justice and citizenship in our Republic.
Source: Keyes2000.org/issues/ “Core Beliefs” , Jan 9, 1999

Against the “gay agenda”.

“The gay agenda is the most serious threat to America’s families today.”
Source: Time, 6/29/98, p. 20, “The Drawing Board” , Jun 29, 1998

#1: Restore the moral foundations of family life

“My number one priority is to restore the moral and material foundations of family life. From this three other priorities follow-overturn Roe v. Wade, abolish the federal income tax, return control of our educational system to parents at the grassroots.”
Source: 1996 National Political Awareness Test, Project Vote Smart , Jul 2, 1996

Truth & right vs. wrong underlies government & society

What sense is there in winning, in success, or even prosperity if there is not truth? We are reaching the point in this society where people are denying that there is any line to be drawn between truth and falsehood, rights and wrong. If that’s the case, then our whole way of life can’t work any more--because it is based on the sense that there are certain self-evident truths, that those self-evident truths support a certain idea of human justice, which require respect for human rights, that therefore you must have elections and due process, and all the other things we consider to be the hallmarks of freedom. If there is no difference between right and wrong, then none of that is true, and there is no need to respect individual rights, there is no requirement that to be legitimate government has to be based upon consent, and the only thing that separates us from tyranny and despotism is that at the moment nobody has yet gained the upper hand.
Source: Our Character, Our Future, p. 9 , May 2, 1996

The crisis of our times is a crisis of character

The moral requirements of freedom what the Founders called self-government. Self-government begins with self-control--the willingness to postpone our material gratification to the extent necessary for economic success and the discretion to limit our passions to the extent necessary to live in peace with our fellow citizens. The real crisis of our times is therefore, a crisis of character. It is a crisis that has been caused by our inability to admit the moral requirement of freedom.
Source: Our Character, Our Future, p. 15-6 , May 2, 1996

Other candidates on Principles & Values: Alan Keyes on other issues:
Former Presidents/Veeps:
George W. Bush (R,2001-2009)
V.P.Dick Cheney
Bill Clinton (D,1993-2001)
V.P.Al Gore
George Bush Sr. (R,1989-1993)
Ronald Reagan (R,1981-1989)
Jimmy Carter (D,1977-1981)
Gerald Ford (R,1974-1977)
Richard Nixon (R,1969-1974)
Lyndon Johnson (D,1963-1969)
John F. Kennedy (D,1961-1963)
Dwight Eisenhower (R,1953-1961)
Harry_S_TrumanHarry S Truman(D,1945-1953)

Religious Leaders:
New Testament
Old Testament
Pope Francis

Political Thinkers:
Noam Chomsky
Milton Friedman
Arianna Huffington
Rush Limbaugh
Tea Party
Ayn Rand
Secy.Robert Reich
Joe Scarborough
Gov.Jesse Ventura 		Abortion
Budget/Economy
Civil Rights
Corporations
Crime
Drugs
Education
Energy/Oil
Environment
Families/Children
Foreign Policy
Free Trade
Govt. Reform
Gun Control
Health Care
Homeland Security
Immigration
Infrastructure/Technology
Jobs
Principles/Values
Social Security
Tax Reform
War/Iraq/Mideast
Welfare/Poverty





Page last updated: Oct 26, 2021