Alan Keyes
Should I be silent about Romney's true record?
By Alan Keyes
Just moments ago, I read the following email from someone reacting to an article I posted earlier today:
Dr. Keyes,
I admire and promote you. These messages at this time are not prudent. Although I agree with your thoughts, I fear another non-vote (by ten million Republicans) for the Republican nominee as the very same as when RINO John McCain ran. This is one of the factors that left us with Mr. Obama. Please consider this and stifle your admirable passion until AFTER the election, unless your very intent is to do Romney in.
Here is my reply, which I thought might be of interest to my readers:
Thank you for your words and counsel. I disagree on only one point. The issue is not what gave us Obama, but what gave us the choice between Obama and people like McCain and Romney, who are like him in all too many ways.
Nothing done in the voting booth in 2008 "left us with Mr. Obama." Obama's election was assured when John McCain sided with those who crossed the Rubicon to socialism by adopting the TARP bank bailout plan. The overwhelming majority of Americans thought it a bad idea to pawn the good faith and credit of the American people in order to assure the profits of those who brought on the financial disaster in the first place. Had McCain taken their side, he would have beaten Obama in spite of himself. That was not the plan. The plan was exactly what happened — McCain took a dive in order to let Obama take the White House.
The same forces that put Obama in place have now engineered a choice in the 2012 election intended to force voters to side either with a socialist Democrat who wants to impose socialism on the nation or a socialist Republican who has already imposed socialism on his home state of Massachusetts. To say that voters who refuse to support either are somehow responsible for electing one or the other is like saying that people who refuse to submit to the demands of terrorists are somehow responsible for killing the people the terrorists subsequently murder. The guarantee of successful terrorism that results from that perverse logic places everyone's life in greater danger.
I am responsible to God first and above all. If I stand silent now, I let the torrent of lies being used to promote Romney as some kind of "conservative" stand. He will receive support from well-intentioned people gulled by those lies. The credibility he gains from their support will give him the power to reshape the meaning of "conservative" in ways that betray their good intentions. Because of my silence, that result will be, in part, my doing. When he uses that credibility to promote the murder of innocent children conceived during forcible rape, their murders will be, in part, my doing. When he forces Catholic and other religious hospitals to provide abortifacient drugs or close their doors (as he did in Massachusetts), their sacrifice of conscience or good works will be, in part, my doing. When he uses the White House as a bully pulpit to pressure the Boy Scouts into accepting openly homosexual scouts and leaders, the abuses that are likely to result will be, in part, my doing. It may be prudent, in every worldly sense, for me to keep silent. But when I stand before almighty God to answer for my share of responsibility for the (supposedly lesser) moral evils attributable to Romney's successful bid for power, how prudent will it seem that I avoided the world's scorn by deserving the condemnation of God, who made and governs the universe this world is part of?
The responsibility for Obama's victory or loss burdens the people who support him. The responsibility for Romney's victory or loss burdens the people who support him. Forces larger than both of us have engineered the situation in which those who oppose Obama supposedly "have no choice" but to support his all too similar opponent. But where there is no choice, there is no election, only a powerful fabrication intended to force good people to betray all that they profess to believe. I guess I would fall prey to those larger forces, and their powerful fabrication, if I did not believe that the greatest force of all is the self-evident truth of God's superintending power. "Quid est veritas" (What is truth?) Pilate asked, before the election Jesus lost. "I am the way, and the truth and the life" was Jesus' answer, to the disciple who questioned His way. Judged by the world's prudence, Jesus was lacking, for he was crucified. Judged by God's wisdom, Jesus was prudent, for his way is the way of the elect in the only election that matters.
I think this was the faith of many of the founders of this country, who imprudently pledged their lives, and fortunes, in order to establish the God-acknowledging republic we are in process of destroying. Could it be that we are doing so precisely because of the excessive prudence that stands silent while evil triumphs, more or less? Could it be that the way to end that process of destruction is to elect, here and now, to act for the right as God gives us to see the right, not wait until AFTER an election that has already gone the wrong way (else there would be a choice for good)?
"There is a way which seems right to man, but it is ultimately the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12). When faced with a crossroads of evil, human judgment makes out only one way or the other. But by the grace of God, we may choose the way of the Cross, which stands above either. Therein lies the imprudent, certain, only way to truth and life and victory.
Godspeed,
Alan Keyes
August 30, 2012
Just moments ago, I read the following email from someone reacting to an article I posted earlier today:
Dr. Keyes,
I admire and promote you. These messages at this time are not prudent. Although I agree with your thoughts, I fear another non-vote (by ten million Republicans) for the Republican nominee as the very same as when RINO John McCain ran. This is one of the factors that left us with Mr. Obama. Please consider this and stifle your admirable passion until AFTER the election, unless your very intent is to do Romney in.
Here is my reply, which I thought might be of interest to my readers:
Thank you for your words and counsel. I disagree on only one point. The issue is not what gave us Obama, but what gave us the choice between Obama and people like McCain and Romney, who are like him in all too many ways.
Nothing done in the voting booth in 2008 "left us with Mr. Obama." Obama's election was assured when John McCain sided with those who crossed the Rubicon to socialism by adopting the TARP bank bailout plan. The overwhelming majority of Americans thought it a bad idea to pawn the good faith and credit of the American people in order to assure the profits of those who brought on the financial disaster in the first place. Had McCain taken their side, he would have beaten Obama in spite of himself. That was not the plan. The plan was exactly what happened — McCain took a dive in order to let Obama take the White House.
The same forces that put Obama in place have now engineered a choice in the 2012 election intended to force voters to side either with a socialist Democrat who wants to impose socialism on the nation or a socialist Republican who has already imposed socialism on his home state of Massachusetts. To say that voters who refuse to support either are somehow responsible for electing one or the other is like saying that people who refuse to submit to the demands of terrorists are somehow responsible for killing the people the terrorists subsequently murder. The guarantee of successful terrorism that results from that perverse logic places everyone's life in greater danger.
I am responsible to God first and above all. If I stand silent now, I let the torrent of lies being used to promote Romney as some kind of "conservative" stand. He will receive support from well-intentioned people gulled by those lies. The credibility he gains from their support will give him the power to reshape the meaning of "conservative" in ways that betray their good intentions. Because of my silence, that result will be, in part, my doing. When he uses that credibility to promote the murder of innocent children conceived during forcible rape, their murders will be, in part, my doing. When he forces Catholic and other religious hospitals to provide abortifacient drugs or close their doors (as he did in Massachusetts), their sacrifice of conscience or good works will be, in part, my doing. When he uses the White House as a bully pulpit to pressure the Boy Scouts into accepting openly homosexual scouts and leaders, the abuses that are likely to result will be, in part, my doing. It may be prudent, in every worldly sense, for me to keep silent. But when I stand before almighty God to answer for my share of responsibility for the (supposedly lesser) moral evils attributable to Romney's successful bid for power, how prudent will it seem that I avoided the world's scorn by deserving the condemnation of God, who made and governs the universe this world is part of?
The responsibility for Obama's victory or loss burdens the people who support him. The responsibility for Romney's victory or loss burdens the people who support him. Forces larger than both of us have engineered the situation in which those who oppose Obama supposedly "have no choice" but to support his all too similar opponent. But where there is no choice, there is no election, only a powerful fabrication intended to force good people to betray all that they profess to believe. I guess I would fall prey to those larger forces, and their powerful fabrication, if I did not believe that the greatest force of all is the self-evident truth of God's superintending power. "Quid est veritas" (What is truth?) Pilate asked, before the election Jesus lost. "I am the way, and the truth and the life" was Jesus' answer, to the disciple who questioned His way. Judged by the world's prudence, Jesus was lacking, for he was crucified. Judged by God's wisdom, Jesus was prudent, for his way is the way of the elect in the only election that matters.
I think this was the faith of many of the founders of this country, who imprudently pledged their lives, and fortunes, in order to establish the God-acknowledging republic we are in process of destroying. Could it be that we are doing so precisely because of the excessive prudence that stands silent while evil triumphs, more or less? Could it be that the way to end that process of destruction is to elect, here and now, to act for the right as God gives us to see the right, not wait until AFTER an election that has already gone the wrong way (else there would be a choice for good)?
"There is a way which seems right to man, but it is ultimately the way of death" (Proverbs 14:12). When faced with a crossroads of evil, human judgment makes out only one way or the other. But by the grace of God, we may choose the way of the Cross, which stands above either. Therein lies the imprudent, certain, only way to truth and life and victory.
Godspeed,
Alan Keyes
To see more articles by Dr. Keyes, visit his blog at LoyalToLiberty.com and his commentary at WND.com and BarbWire.com.
© Alan KeyesThe views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
