Renewing our Declaration of Independence (Alan Keyes)

As we family, friends, and countrymen again gather in our beloved America to observe the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, let us emulate our Founders in their faithfulness to the truth. Theirs was a bold faithfulness that gave birth to this nation in a time of great troubles and trial--but which brought forth a community of decency and equality which remains the last, best hope of mankind on earth.

Let us recite aloud, as we gather, the great words and lessons of the Declaration, and reflect on a Founding generation born into a world characterized by despotism and tyranny and slavery, into an era dominated by philosophy and practice and institutions based upon inequality and the denial of human freedom--and celebrate as generations of Americans before us have done our great Founders' recognition and radical assertion of the universal rights of man.

Tyranny and inequality were not then considered to be unusual or changeable conditions. But our Founders were wise, courageous, and prudent enough to recognize the truth of mankind's brotherhood and sisterhood under the Fatherhood of the Creator God. That humble, faithful insight planted the seeds of liberty which would overturn centuries of cruelty, oppression, and despotism and become the foundation for a successful struggle--even against the age-old institution of slavery.

To those who persist in denigrating our Founders and their God-fearing legacy of liberty, I say this: we should rather show respect for that generation which, though born into an era of slavery, planted the seeds of liberty, than be part of a generation that, born into an era of liberty, plants the seeds of renewed slavery and bondage.

And tragically, we stand in peril today of being that generation. There is an ongoing assault upon the principles that our Founders laid down as the basis for the nation's existence--principles that we observe on this day, clearly and explicitly articulated. These principles cannot be merely lost in the mists of time--because they have been written down and transmitted and solemnly read or spoken, generation to generation, as we read or speak them today all over America.

But such violence can be done them that they can be lost to us. There are factions in America who aggressively reject them, who seek to destroy or distort them, who are embarrassed by them now-embarrassed especially by those great words which acknowledge, as we must acknowledge if we mean to sustain the discipline of liberty, that our rights are given us by the Creator God, and are not inventions of human will.

In perilous times today, as in difficult eras past, we are called to defend this nation. We are today the heirs, and we must become again the practitioners, of that Declaration of principle. Once declared, the Founding generation had to go forth then and assert, protect, and defend those words and ideas in ways that may not be so much appreciated now. We think now of freedom as a source of strength, a source of comfort, a source of the wonderful economic abundance that we enjoy, and the respect as a powerful nation that we are shown by much of the world. This was not what liberty meant to them. At the birth of this precious nation, liberty was a risk. Liberty meant the virtual certainty that anyone who claimed it would sacrifice the safety of his family, that he would lose all the comforts and advantages of condition, that he would watch the burning and destruction of his home and property, that his very life would be forfeit to those who, if victorious, would consider an advocate of our Declaration not a patriot of liberty, but a careless rebel who represented a threat to established order who had to be defeated and destroyed.

No, patriots of our Founders' day understood the risks and the sacrifices--as have subsequent generations in times of trial, as well. For, though it is true that the American flag flew over the era of slavery, it also flew over the carnage and sacrifice of the Civil War. It flew over all of those who were not complicit in the injustice of slavery and were willing, at eighteen and nineteen and twenty years old, to go forward--and in their diaries and from their hearts they declared that they stood on the battle lines of freedom in order that that principle of human equality and freedom would be vindicated, even at the cost of their lives. It is their blood and their sacrifice that washed this nation clean. It was washed clean on the battlefields of Antietam and Gettysburg, it was washed clean by the spiritual result of all of those who were willing to stand, regardless of sacrifice, in conscientious opposition to human enslavement and despotism.

And in the course of generation after generation we have sustained such sacrifices in this nation--more and more peoples coming from all over the world to become Americans have joined in the confluence of our liberty, have united together to stand as we now stand, as representative of the whole human race and as defenders of humanity's universal rights. We are a nation of nations, a people of many peoples, bound together not because we are of common race and background and nationality and religious practice, but rather, bound together "From Many--One," because we stand on a common ground of those principles which we today honor and celebrate: principles that promise to all human beings, as they come from the hand of Almighty God, respect for their equal moral dignity, for their equal human rights.

But, even as we stand on principles that promise that dignity, we live in a country in which that promise is no longer extended to every new generation as it is born. We have, for the sake it seems of our self-indulgence, our unmastered passions, our sexual liberties, withdrawn the guarantee of liberty from that seed which is the physical manifestation of our future generations. For, though each and every one of us walks free and claims our rights, yet every new generation now comes through the shadow of death in the womb--because we have withdrawn the principle of that truth from those generations yet unborn. We have violated the moral law and the principles clearly enshrined in our great Declaration as the very aim of our Constitution: to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, which is to say, to all Americans, born and not yet born.

Even in the midst of war abroad, we are failing to sustain our liberty at home, as we seem willing to passively let a judicial dictatorship destroy republican government of, by, and for the people in this land, and coercively enforce the scouring of God from our public precincts and the dismantling of our free exercise of religious conviction.

And the rule of positive law, too, is being abridged and abrogated even in constitutional obligations as basic as securing our borders, defending our territorial sovereignty, sustaining the rights of citizenship, and rejecting the imperialists' path of colonization.

I can think of a fate worse than being born into a generation that accepted slavery: it is to be born into the generation that renewed the bondage of slavery for millions yet unborn. And if we are not careful, that will be our fate.

How can we avoid it? I think it is simple and direct. We must energetically do in deed what we today observe in form--show our deep devotion, respect, and allegiance for the great, timeless, and universal principles of our Declaration.

But we must then also recall that the Declaration not only promises our rights, it implies a discipline, it implies a limit to will and power in our use of those rights. For, even as it determines that it shall be by vote and consent and majority will that representatives are chosen and laws made and justices and magistrates placed, so it determines that the basis for that claim to rights and votes and due process and liberty is our willingness to acknowledge the limits of human power, the limits of human willfulness, the fact that there is a transcendent Good, a transcendent Will, a transcendent Power beyond our reach that dictates the requirement that we respect the life and dignity and rights of every human being--regardless of station, of strength, of condition, or circumstances of birth.

If we are willing to renew our commitment, in truth, to that great principle, then we shall avoid the dark shadow of renewed oppression and instead lay the foundations for the perpetuation of that liberty for which in this time of troubles we fight--and for which through our history so many have sacrificed. We are, in fact, in the midst of a great crisis of this Republic and of our Declaration principles. And like the crisis of our birth, it will require that we be willing to stand up and take the risks and accept the challenges of battle, of political unpopularity for the sake of sustaining into the future, a real commitment to the meaning of those principles. It's one thing to enjoy the fruits. It's another to be willing to sacrifice even those fruits in order to perpetuate the reality of liberty.

That is why I invite you to go to www.DeclarationProject.us and formally join with us this July 4th in our Declaration of American Renewal. There will never be a better time than today to make a renewed commitment to saving liberty.

It is a hard message, but the true heart of freedom is the promise of moral dignity, a promise that does not depend on our material circumstances, on our wealth or strength: it is a promise that depends instead on our willingness in conscience and truth and will and action, to acknowledge the gift that we cannot give ourselves--but that comes instead from Almighty God, our Creator--and to do so in a way that affirms that whatever the outward appearance of a human life, there is an inner light, an inner dignity that reflects the full dignity of God in all His divine glory, and that as we respect our God, so we shall respect the spark of His divinity in each and every human being, in each and every human life.

If we are willing in fact to make this our commitment, then I think America can move forward as a great nation, fulfilling her great promise. I think that allegiance to the principles of the Declaration burns bright and deep in the hearts of most every American. I think there is still within us that reserve that will be needed in order to assure that through good times and bad, the sacred trust of human goodness, the bedrock respect for human dignity that animates this regime, will continue to be held aloft in our land, to be an inspiration to all those peoples from whom we come.

If we are indeed cognizant of that obligation which we owe, not just to ourselves and to our children but to all the posterity of the Earth, then I think we are indeed capable of the renewal to our Declaration principles that this nation cries out for on this Independence Day. If we act together faithfully, then God willing, we shall fulfill that great promise with which our nation began, which in fact reflects, not a human decision, but rather the promise of God Himself for the better destiny of all the human race. May it be so. Blessed Fourth of July.

I thought it was a beautifully written, fit words for Independence Day.

If you're from Illinois, chill out. Your guy, Barak Obama, won the election.

"Leave it to Alan to want to fix what ain't broke."

What the ---- are you talking about?! Did you READ the article; did you investigate the link? We ARE in a culture war in this country! You call him a liberal, yeah: an 18th century one, AKA a modern right-wing extremist! I may not agree with Alan Keyes on every issue, but what I've read, and heard from him puts him in the same ranks as the founding fathers! Go back and really pay attention to what he is saying in this article. After that, if you still think he's talking about things that "ain't broke" you probably belong on the DU site!

You call him a liberal, yeah: an 18th century one, AKA a modern right-wing extremist! I may not agree with Alan Keyes on every issue, but what I've read, and heard from him puts him in the same ranks as the founding fathers

Thanks for the laughs !! after massa keyes support for Gigantic farm subsidies (stolen money from taxpayers) its quite obvious that keyes is just a "conservative" socialist who loathes the taxpayer as all socialists do.

There you go again. When logic fails fall back on the adolescent ploy of declaring your opponent a blithering Democrat.

An old Democrat dirty trick.

And any Rolf from the Hill Country I've ever heard of is invariably a Hitler Brown Shirt.

I thought it was a beautifully written, fit words for Independence Day.

Indeed. Obviously above the heads of a couple of RINO disruptors here.

"It is a hard message, but the true heart of freedom is the promise of moral dignity, a promise that does not depend on our material circumstances, on our wealth or strength: it is a promise that depends instead on our willingness in conscience and truth and will and action, to acknowledge the gift that we cannot give ourselves--but that comes instead from Almighty God, our Creator--and to do so in a way that affirms that whatever the outward appearance of a human life, there is an inner light, an inner dignity that reflects the full dignity of God in all His divine glory, and that as we respect our God, so we shall respect the spark of His divinity in each and every human being, in each and every human life."

You obviously know nothing of Dr. Keyes' positions vis a vis agriculture.

He supports the family farm, and would remove the socialist shackles that are destroying what little is left of that fundamental institution of American survival.

Please, confine your comments to agreement or disagreement with the essay.

Leave it to Alan to want to fix what ain't broke. Liberal improvements unasked for and not welcome. Go out and play in the traffic Alan.

Does the "95" in your screen name denote the year that you were born?

My apologies to well-behaved eleven year-olds.

Thank you for your recent remarks.

Lets hope you somehow feel better having made such a discourteous and unwarranted personal attack on me.

Being of a forgiving nature, I am well aware that you may merely have been repeating something that was said to or about you recently.

Meantime,have a nice life.

I may not agree with Alan Keyes on every issue, but what I've read, and heard from him puts him in the same ranks as the founding fathers

There isn't anyone alive at this point and time in the United States that belongs "in the same ranks as the founding fathers".

You obviously know nothing of Dr. Keyes' positions vis a vis agriculture.

"We therefore have a stake that goes beyond money, it goes beyond food. It’s a question of America’s moral decency." Alan Keyes.

Massa keyes please talk about "beyond money" with YOUR OWN personal funds and not with the hard working taxpayers !!!!! You DO NOT HAVE ANY MORAL AUTHORITY to take taxpayers money and give it away to your supporter base.

I may not agree with Alan Keyes on every issue, but what I've read, and heard from him puts him in the same ranks as the founding fathers

There isn't anyone alive at this point and time in the United States that belongs "in the same ranks as the founding fathers".

Wrong poster.

Your rants are misdirected.

If you dislike Alan Keyes' views on economics, especially as it concerns farming, there isn't a soul in American politics who is going to satisfy you.

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