Posted on 08/10/2004 12:27:10 PM PDT by BillyBoy
Fellow FReepers,
One of our active members in the Illinois chapter, Unspun, has created an e-petition calling on Republican leaders on both the state and national level to immediately fully fund and support the U.S. Senate campaign of Dr. Alan L. Keyes.
I'm posting this on FR because all freepers across America are welcomed and encouraged to sign. And after you do, please forward it to others you know:
A re-elected President George W. Bush and our nation NEED Alan Keyes to assume Peter Fitzgerald's Senate seat. Fitzgerald was elected running as unapologetic conservative and that's exactly what Keyes is doing. Alan Keyes CAN win this election but only through the national efforts of conservatives everywhere. He is jumping into the race during the time of crisis when the Democrats are way ahead on fundraising.
It is especially important for Ambassador Keyes' wonderful voice of insightful American statesmanship and conscience to be heard in the Senate, instead of the liberal extremity represented by Barack Obama's Illinois State Senate votes.
This petition simply calls for Republican leaders to unite, to:
1. Introduce Alan Keyes to the campaign contributors they know.
2. Encourage the volunteers they know, to work for Dr. Keyes.
3. Strongly endorse Alan Keyes and work with his campaign
The time is short in this unique and historic campaign. The eyes of the nation are upon it. Alan Keyes' message must get to all the voters of Illinois.
The above link explains further. Opening it, you will see that this petition is starting to be being signed by dedicated Illinoisans and other Americans of principle, including grass roots and political leaders.
Won't you add your your name and town to the list?
The link to the petition itself is:
http://www.petitiononline.com/KeyesIL/petition.html
Thank you! Please pass it on! BUMP this thread!
Mountaineer, this is an Illinois election we're discussing here, so either send money or shut up. ;-)
Actually that paragraph is about a 1/3 of the way in. And it says it all, it says that Keyes knows that what he's doing is wrong, but he's doing it anyway. It's not misleading, I read the rest and I'm not convinced the rest is worth violating that paragraph, he was right then, everything after that is a violation of principle and shameful.
The realities involved are that Keyes is violating his own principles, and his 28% in the polls shows he doesn't even have the backing of the registered Republicans (national average is 34%) and has absolutely no support outside the party. Given those numbers it's a fair assumption that at meast a few party activists have decided to take his election off.
He stopped being an honest principles conservative the minute he chose to be a carpetbagger.
I have no fear of FR scrutiny, I'm not the one running around insulting people and fleeing from the issues. Deal with the facts, how do you address the FACT that Keyes himself said snipping spots from where you don't live is wrong?!
Thanks for the response. Here are my principles and facts on the matter, which I gain are also the good doctor's:
1. This acceptance of the IL GOP invitation to run for US Senate, is utterly, thoroughly, and in black and white, federally constitutional. It is an act according to both the spirit and letter of the law, after all other options are judged by a nominating body of a state to be inadequate, for someone from out of state to accept the invitation of that body.
2. As Dr. Keyes has demonstrated as well as explained, just as at the time Ft. Sumter was fired upon, there arise issues and causes that reach beneath the Constitution and into the very raison detre for our nation, expressed in our Declaration.
"Among these," are our most primal individual and corporate rights. Of individual primacy is that we are all living human beings created to live under God's "natural" law. Of foundational corporate primacy is that we are a nation, rather than a collection of independent states. It just so happens that by Article 10, our nation leaves those powers not granted by the People to Federal Government, to individual People and their states.
We must not confuse a primal right or responsibility, upon which our nation is created, with the nationally granted powers (that is, those powers granted by our nation, once our nation was already founded).
If, for primal issues of our most basic human rights and responsibilities, we cannot find our footing deeper than our Constitional "first floor," within the "foundational" responsibilities and rights of the Declaration of Independence, then we will one day be forced to find it in the one Declared corporate right/responsibility laying deeper yet: the replacement of our nation's foundation, by creating a yet newer nation, separated from its unbearable former tyranny.
If murder is not unbearable, what is?
If the deconstructionist denial of meaning, by redefinition of the word for our most basic societal contract (marriage) is not ontologically and epistemologically unbearable, what is?
This argument very much reminds me of those I've had in FR who believe Lincoln was an unconstitutional tyrant. ;-)
Alan Keyes principles in this are expressed in his acceptance speech, linked to at the bottom of http://www.unspun.info/supportkeyes
And as Keyes points out, Hillary shopped and plotted to find a state to represent. Keyes, after reluctance/refusal was compelled by a sense of the overridinng responsibility I just addressed, to accept an invitation of a state and party in crisis.
I think you will agree that it is generally wrong to fire a gun in one's urban back yard.
I think you will also agree that there are very rare times when overriding reasons necessitate it.
1 - This is in clear and obvious violation of the intent of the Constitution, if they wanted anybody to be able to run for office anywhere why did they put a residency clause in the Constitution in the first place?
2 - If you really believed 1 you wouldn't make point 2. If you feel this follows the intent of the Constitution why talk about reaching below the Constitution? And even if 2 was valid, this is not one of those times. keyes is going to lose, he's going to lose badly, and even if he won, 1 Senator isn't goiung to change anything.
Keyes could have done more good campaigning in Illinois. His single issue is a non-starter. There's no reason to give somebody six years in an elected office for one issue, and too many people don't like single issue candidates, and now that he's violated his own principles there's no reason to believe he'll actually stand by his single issue. He violated the intent of the Constitution, he violated his own stated principles, he is no longer to be trusted. If lying is not unbearable what is? And that's what Keyes did, he made himself a liar.
No, it depends on the backyard, the gun, the intent of the firing, and what's on the other side of the target. the metaphor is completely invalid, this is Keyes going back on his own word, once somebody does that their word can never be trusted again. His position has proven to be negotiable, he can't ber trusted to keep his pro-life position now, he can't be trusted to keep any position, by making this "one time exception" he has given himself over to situation ethics and negotiable morality.
What Keyes did was agree to do something he has said repeated is wrong. That is immoral regardless of the "cause" of convenience.
"It is wrong to shoot guns in your back yard, in the city," wouldn't you agree?
No, I'm adopting what YOU are saying in his defense. You're saying he's running because of this single issue, this issue which has inprised him to ignore the clear intent of the founders and his own statements.
I've taken a look at Keyes resume, until he agree to this charade he was one of my favorite conservatives and I was proud to be aligned with people like him. Take a look yourself, see how often he discusses the importance of states getting REAL representation by people that actually know something about the state. He's going back on all of that with his run.
No.
But if someone is shooting guns in the backyard in common, unjustified ways and another says, "No, that's wrong, to be shooting guns in the city like that! It's against the social contract!" that is a good thing to say, right?
And suppose that a few years later the person who said this finds someone being raped at gunpoint in his back yard (or babies being picked off, for target practice). Mightn't it be good for him to bring a gun out and use it?
And does the fact that this was his motivation mean that this is the only ways the homeowner he ever uses his gun?
Notice you need the qualifiers "common" and "unjustified". Yes there can be circumstances when it is wrong to fire a gun in a crowded urban area, no that does not mean it's generally wrong, and no that metaphor has no application at all to the Keyes carpetbag tour of Illinois.
This isn't that kind of situation. The Founders put a residency clause in for a reason, Keyes used to be the type of person that respected the logic of the Founders. Now he's decided all those principles were inconvenient. We don't know what Keyes motivation is, we know what he says it is, but his actions have proven you can't beleive what he says. He used to say running for office someplace you didn't live was wrong, but he's now thrown that position out.
Yes they are, he doesn't live there, they wouldn't have put a residency requirement in if they didn't think where you lived mattered. He doesn't live there, residency matters and Keyes has no business running for office someplace he doesn't live.
Jesus never made himself a liar.
I am campaigning for something positive: a VALID candidate for Illinois Senator, which Keyes is NOT, and whom Keyes should be campaigning FOR.
LOL !! How true.
I always wonder why Keyes suddenly surfaces again as a topic on FR and immediately money is somehow connected. HMMMMMM !!!
Any sane person would rather see Keyes elected than Obama, but could we please have a reality check here?
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