Posted on 07/05/2004 12:03:34 AM PDT by goldstategop
Keep the Declaration alive
Alan Keyes
As we 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 – a bold faithfulness that gave birth to this nation.
Let us 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 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 and plant the seeds of that liberty which would overturn centuries of 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 legacy of liberty, I say this: I would rather show respect for that generation which, though born into an era of slavery, planted the seeds of liberty, than to be part of a generation that, born into an era of liberty, plants the seeds of renewed slavery and bondage.
And sadly, we are in danger 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 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 not inventions of human will.
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 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 have in the world. This was not what liberty meant to them. At that time liberty was a risk. Liberty meant the virtual certainty that you would sacrifice the safety of your family, that you would lose all the comforts, that you would watch the burning and destruction of your home, that your very life would be forfeit to those who, if victorious, would consider you not the patriots of liberty, but the careless rebels who represented that which they had to defeat and destroy.
No, they understood the risks and the sacrifices – as have subsequent generations, 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 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 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 we 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 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.
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's simple. We must energetically do in truth what we today observe in form – show our respect and allegiance for the great 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 in the 21st century for the perpetuation of that liberty for which we fight and for which 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.
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. 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 promise of human dignity will continue to be held aloft in this 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 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.
read later!!!
Imagine someone like Alan Keyes screening the President's supreme court appointments, instead of Alberto Gonzalez.
Or, even better, imagine if he were in the United States Senate, instead of Barbara Mikulksi.
We'd have a different country.
"If only it were politically feasible to appoint this man to another administrative position within the executive branch of government.
Imagine someone like Alan Keyes screening the President's supreme court appointments, instead of Alberto Gonzalez.
Or, even better, imagine if he were in the United States Senate, instead of Barbara Mikulksi.
We'd have a different country."
I agree with you. America needs more Alan Keyes.
I concur with that statement.
This site has links to many recent Keyes speeches!
http://www.renewamerica.us/archives/
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