Helen Weir
January 14, 2008
'Restoring our laws to wholesomeness'
America's light and the vision of Alan Keyes
By Helen Weir

With the presidential primaries now upon us, the candidates on both sides of the nominal divide are feverishly expounding on their policy preferences on the full array of vital issues currently facing the American public. Well, perhaps that ought to be "on the highly selective short list of designated 'voter concerns' as determined by our self-appointed lords and masters, the mainstream media" — but that is old news by now.

Those candidate preferences are getting 24/7 coverage, eclipsing for the moment even the unnecessary details of the latest murder trial or celebrity mishap. They fluctuate freely according to the audience to whom they are addressed, and contrast like scofflaws with the prior positions of their present proponents. They are also so homogenized that the average voter can be excused — well, not really — for taking into consideration such factors as haircuts, body language, and the aspirations expressed during one's kindergarten days, in determining who will become the next leader of the free world.

Among the media-recognized hopefuls of either major party, the consensus for socialism is so strong that there remains only such trivia on which to distinguish one potential president from another.

Alan Keyes, forcibly sidelined and then treated dismissively for not garnering levels of support comparable to those of his overtouted counterparts, is unique among the presidential candidates. As his campaign literature declares, his policy preferences constitute a consistently conservative position. Fred Thompson has been claiming this for himself lately, but that claim is only credible if the word "conservative" can be wrenched so wholly out of context as to be used to mean something it has absolutely never meant before.

It is not only the sum of Dr. Keyes' policy commitments, however, that sets him apart. It is his vision of America — an America founded on the authority of the God to whose light we are now, as a nation, closing our eyes — from which those positions are derived. Return to this vision, and liberty will follow. Return to this vision, and power will no longer be at the mercy of manipulated polls. It will be back in the hands of the people — responsible, informed, and God-fearing people — where it, by American rights, belongs.

The media knows this all too well. That is why they deal with Dr. Keyes by not dealing with him at all, while readily admitting to the limelight even candidates whose religious convictions would seem to be at odds with the advancement of secularism. Those convictions, voluntarily privatized, pose no serious alternative to the media agenda at all. In fact, such candidates are, no doubt, quite helpful to their cause. After all, if they can get us pesky believers to throw our support behind a border-bashing, tax-and-spend type with such a shaky grasp on foreign affairs that he could potentially be dictated to by the talking heads, so much the better.

"In 2008, we face a choice in our politics," Dr. Keyes told an audience at the Christ Risen Interactive Church in Cedar Rapids on December 30, 2007, "and it is taking place in the wake one of the most egregious failures" of American national security in our entire history — namely, 9/11. And the choice is not between Democrat or Republican, Mormon or Evangelical, man or woman, black or white. It is between returning to the recognition for the authority of God on which our system of government is intrinsically based, or not. For the sake of giving Americans this choice Dr. Keyes himself is running, because no other candidate of any description has it on offer.

"What happened on 9/11 can't be understood with the eyes of the spirit shut," he emphasized. "Let's think for a minute of what terrorism is about. Some people think violence is what makes terrorism so terrible, but that isn't true. On Memorial Day we go out to honor those who" — in the course of winning World War II, for example — "kill."

The evil essence of terrorism, Dr. Keyes insisted, as he has insisted everywhere and has been shut out of debate after debate for insisting, is that "you cannot have the right to take innocent life. You have crossed the line that separates just and unjust action." But "if terrorism has at its heart this principle, was September 11 the first time we saw that principle in action in America?"

No.

"In the abortuaries you'd find it all over, and under the rubric of a Supreme Court decision. The Supreme Court declared this heinous lie in Roe v. Wade." When you "cannot see the majesty of God in the humble babe sleeping in the womb," he continued, speaking against the backdrop of the Christmas season, "when God starts to bring your own evil against you, it means you stand outside His mercy, in the dark shadow of your own making." And "you know what's sad about America? Nothing I said to you just now is new."

America herself, however, historically constituted something new, in that government of, by, and for the people can surely be counted as a nearly singular "exception" in human affairs. Most societies have seen sharp divides between master and servant, in whatever cultural variety. Isn't this what all of the other candidates are harking back to, when they declare, "Elect me, and I will . . ." even in the very rare cases in which they happen to be promising something salutary? Alan Keyes says, in effect, "Elect me, and you will be sovereign in your own country again" — not because liberty is his to give, but because he alone is committed to leading us back to national respect for the Author of life.

That is not a violation of an artificial separation of church and state. It is what America, from the very moment of her founding, has always been about.

"Remembering this will restore our laws to wholesomeness," Dr. Keyes testified. Anything short of the vision he seeks to reawaken in us — even a "completely conservative" policy smorgasbord, were such an entity elsewhere on offer — will not. And that is why we must engage ourselves in the effort of American Revival, and promote and vote for its leader Alan Keyes, come what may, and whether even many of our fellow Christians understand and join us, or not. Those who agree with Alan Keyes but refuse to support him characteristically express deep-seated disquietude about what America might become, should another Democrat shortly darken the steps of the White House door. What about casting aside our useless fear, and making the election of '08 a time to, as Dr. Keyes puts it, "stand fast in the liberty in which the Lord has made us free," instead?



Pictures: Alan Keyes in Cedar Rapids, Iowa



© Helen Weir

 

The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.
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Helen Weir

Helen is a freelance writer based in western Wisconsin. (Her works have also appeared under her former name of Helen Valois.) She is a member of the Militia Immaculatae movement of Marian consecration founded by St. Maximilian Kolbe.

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