Replies

Alan Keyes on Judge Roy Moore, and the Ten Commandments

“…The Constitution and the Bill of Rights withholds from the national government the power to address in any lawful fashion the issue of an establishment of religion. And it, by the Tenth Amendment, reserves for the states and the people of the states the power to address that question. That means, by the way, that though these folks don't want to hear this--because this is a phrase they hate to hear; they especially hate to hear it from me because I'm one of the few people they can't accuse of racism when I raise it.

The Bill of Rights, actually, in this instance, protects a state right, a right of the states in the sovereign element which they have retained under our Constitution, another little fact everyone wants to forget. Okay?

And what the first phrase of the First Amendment protects is not an individual right. Individuals have no power to make laws. What it protects is a power of government, and it reserves that power of government to the states and to the people of the states.

Now, that, by the way, means--and here's where we get to Roy Moore and lawbreaking--that, by the way, means that even if you accepted the incorporation doctrine, what's enjoined upon the state officials is to respect those rights, privileges, and immunities that are established in the Bill of Rights. That's the argument they make.
Well, it turns out that one of the rights established in the Bill of Rights is the right of the states and of the people of the states to deal with the issue of religious establishment without dictation or interference from the federal government.

Now, if you're Roy Moore and a federal judge tells you that you must surrender this right of your state, surrender this right of your people, then you must look him in the eye and say, "By the law of Alabama and by the Constitution of the United States, I must say, 'NO, SIR!'"

And in case people are still confused, I would remind them that the doctrine that not only do you have the right to refuse an unlawful order, but in the most touchy situation imaginable--that of our military--can you think of a situation in which discipline is more important than in the midst of war? And yet, in the midst of war, the lowliest private soldier in our military not only has the right, he is under an obligation to refuse an unlawful order. And we're to say that what a private soldier in the army has a moral obligation to do is not the obligation of the highest officials in our states, when they see the rights of our states and our people being trampled underfoot by those who have illegitimately usurped the power reserved to the states in the Constitution?

Do you know what it means when you take an illegitimate power and call it your own, like someone who ascends to a kingship by illegitimate means, and then, all by your lonesome, answering to no one, you wield that power in an abusive way?

They call it tyranny."

57 posted on 02/29/2004 10:58:29 PM EST by FBD