Alan Keyes
For Americans, 'righteous' has a certain meaning
By Alan Keyes
[This exchange occurred in reply to my article "The true right to secede comes from God, not the Constitution."]
THE COMMENT
"Righteous political will" is where the rub is. That statement in context of today's America has a nebulous meaning. Pick your race, nationality, or political party — the meaning of "righteous political will" can be as different as day and night. A country is held together by two forces. As a nation, we can choose God's spiritual tenets, or we can appoint a demigod to save us, which is what we just did in the last election.
MY REPLY
In the article, I'm addressing Americans, not just people who happen to live in America. Americans are the people who speak in and through the words of the Declaration and the Constitution. Those words are the context for the word "righteous," which therefore has a very specific meaning. It means of, related to, or determined by God-endowed right. Thus, for Americans, the word "righteous" does not have a "nebulous" meaning. To be sure, the meaning it has in the context of events may have to be rationally explained. That's what political discourse is about among people who practice the politics of principle which corresponds to the requirements of republican self-government.
The people who seek to appoint, as the source and standard of right, some human individual or clique to replace God belong to the anti-American elitist faction, whatever other party or ideological label they apply to themselves. At the moment, they have prevailed because Americans are allowing the country to be dominated by the GOP/Democrat elitist faction parties. My point is that Americans must withdraw from the elitist faction party system to form a party that reflects their will to respect America's founding principles, beginning with the premise of God-endowed right. Hence the reference to their "righteous political will" has a clear and unmistakable meaning.
AN AFTERWORD
As I prepared to post this exchange, I focused on the fact that my reply, aside from clarifying the meaning of the word righteous, also says something quite important about what it means to be an American. "Americans are those who speak the words of the Declaration and the Constitution." One characteristic of the elitist faction party system is the sly but general abandonment of serious respect for these key elements of the Organic Law of the United States. They are bent on a) creating facts that ignore and undermine the authority of the Constitution; b) irreversibly banishing from America's politics, life, and law any reliance on or even reference to God's authority, thus discarding the Declaration's doctrine of God-endowed rights; and c) sooner or later formally replacing the Constitution with a document that in fact and history refers to no standard of right or authority for government but what is derived from superior material power.
A critically important aim of the elitist faction's strategy for overthrowing government of, by, and for the people is thus to sever and, when possible, erase all historical ties between the contemporary and future inhabitants of America and the people who composed, and bequeathed to their posterity, the documents that uphold the logic of liberty.
The words of the Declaration and the Constitution invite each new generation of Americans to remember and rely upon that logic. As long as people who do so hope to prevail in our politics, the Republic survives. Once it is clear that they no longer respond to that hope (because they refuse to trust in God), the Republic will have passed beyond the point of no return.
December 6, 2012
[This exchange occurred in reply to my article "The true right to secede comes from God, not the Constitution."]
THE COMMENT
"Righteous political will" is where the rub is. That statement in context of today's America has a nebulous meaning. Pick your race, nationality, or political party — the meaning of "righteous political will" can be as different as day and night. A country is held together by two forces. As a nation, we can choose God's spiritual tenets, or we can appoint a demigod to save us, which is what we just did in the last election.
MY REPLY
In the article, I'm addressing Americans, not just people who happen to live in America. Americans are the people who speak in and through the words of the Declaration and the Constitution. Those words are the context for the word "righteous," which therefore has a very specific meaning. It means of, related to, or determined by God-endowed right. Thus, for Americans, the word "righteous" does not have a "nebulous" meaning. To be sure, the meaning it has in the context of events may have to be rationally explained. That's what political discourse is about among people who practice the politics of principle which corresponds to the requirements of republican self-government.
The people who seek to appoint, as the source and standard of right, some human individual or clique to replace God belong to the anti-American elitist faction, whatever other party or ideological label they apply to themselves. At the moment, they have prevailed because Americans are allowing the country to be dominated by the GOP/Democrat elitist faction parties. My point is that Americans must withdraw from the elitist faction party system to form a party that reflects their will to respect America's founding principles, beginning with the premise of God-endowed right. Hence the reference to their "righteous political will" has a clear and unmistakable meaning.
AN AFTERWORD
As I prepared to post this exchange, I focused on the fact that my reply, aside from clarifying the meaning of the word righteous, also says something quite important about what it means to be an American. "Americans are those who speak the words of the Declaration and the Constitution." One characteristic of the elitist faction party system is the sly but general abandonment of serious respect for these key elements of the Organic Law of the United States. They are bent on a) creating facts that ignore and undermine the authority of the Constitution; b) irreversibly banishing from America's politics, life, and law any reliance on or even reference to God's authority, thus discarding the Declaration's doctrine of God-endowed rights; and c) sooner or later formally replacing the Constitution with a document that in fact and history refers to no standard of right or authority for government but what is derived from superior material power.
A critically important aim of the elitist faction's strategy for overthrowing government of, by, and for the people is thus to sever and, when possible, erase all historical ties between the contemporary and future inhabitants of America and the people who composed, and bequeathed to their posterity, the documents that uphold the logic of liberty.
The words of the Declaration and the Constitution invite each new generation of Americans to remember and rely upon that logic. As long as people who do so hope to prevail in our politics, the Republic survives. Once it is clear that they no longer respond to that hope (because they refuse to trust in God), the Republic will have passed beyond the point of no return.
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.)
