Posted on 08/19/2004 5:27:04 AM PDT by kattracks
His voice rising to a yell, Republican U.S. Senate nominee Alan Keyes told a bipartisan civic group Wednesday he "will not budge" from his belief that descendants of slaves should be exempted from income taxes to help heal the wounds of past discrimination and segregation.The former presidential candidate disdainfully brushed aside questions over whether his suggestion should apply to rich African Americans such as Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan or Oprah Winfrey.
"Do you know how many Oprah Winfreys there might have been running around in the 1930s or in the 1920s or in the 19-teens that got nowhere because the doors were shut in their face?" Keyes thundered. "If you think that because I wear a conservative label, I have forgotten that history and am not mindful of that injustice -- then I will tell you now that you are wrong."
Keyes delivered his blistering defense at a luncheon of the City Club of Chicago, scolding fellow conservatives who challenged his proposal and evoking the struggle of his African-American parents, saying they had talent and "hearts and spirit and strength and faith."
"Why didn't they get to a point where they could stand on this platform?" Keyes aked.
Vying against Democrat Barack Obama, Keyes drew heat from conservatives earlier this week when he proposed exempting descendants of slaves from income taxes for a generation or two, a view he insists "involves a traditionally Republican, conservative and market-oriented approach."
On Wednesday, Keyes ridiculed the fuss over his position, saying it is simply a tax break, something "Republicans and my conservative brethren" don't object to when applied to a "wealthy corporation."
Conservative activist Jack Roeser met with Keyes for what Roeser called "a long argument and an intense one" over the issue before the speech. A Barrington businessman, Roeser said he still is not sold on Keyes' reparations proposal, but still plans to support him anyway. "I will tell my friends that this is a good man, and we should support him."
If you're just shifting the tax burden, it's not a good thing, ESPECIALLY if it's race-based.
I hope they will vote for Keyes.
I'd love to see the democrats' GREAT BLACK HOPE lose.
Tell it to Keyes. He seems to have forgotten to include the "your tax amnesty shall come as a result of a reduction in the actual tax burden placed on the population as a whole" in his harebrained scam.
Tell that to the Keyes-bashers, not to me.
They have been attacking a Republican Senate nominee for almost two weeks now.
Have you participated?
Well, I sure hope you don't have a heart attack. But give up the whining-victimhood-it's everybody else's fault routine.
Why on earth did he say it? Good grief, there are so many Muslims and Mexicans in Illinois, he should focus on that problem. We're losing our country, but the Republican party is ignoring it, along with the Democrats who brought us Kennedy's ungodly immigration bill in '75.
However, I'd love to see Keyes in public office. What fun!
Selective editing, my A**. You just don't like the fact that you'ce been accurately pegged.
Not nice, tres drole.
Don't play the ingenue. You come in here, sh!tting on anyone who dares to speak the truth about this insanity, and then when your targets don't fold up and go home, you start playing cute?
Not nice?
It's not nice to sh!t all over a high target thread by spamming the same threatening demands over and over, and then start playing the coy little girl when you're cornered.
Why don't you find some other ankle to nip at for a while?
I agree, but that's not what Keyes has said. He has never given any indication that he would raise anyone else's taxes in order to offset the reductions given to descendents of slaves. Now, if he were a Democrat, I'd simply assume that this was a part of his "plan," but I have a hard time imagining Alan Keyes arguing for an increase in anyone's taxes.
Someone else on this thread just made another great point in support of his proposal: if it gets African Americans thinking in terms of personal economic empowerment and tax reductions, the Democrats wouldn't win another national election in our lifetimes.
Well, I guess all those who said "Keyes should quit trying to make everything about abortion" got their wish!
To be totally honest,
I have not followed your posts,
because they usually tee me off. LOL!
As you know, the "qualified" candidate
does not always win.
On Keyes, we are on the same team.
I look at the big picture.
I despise democrats save for Zell Miller
and maybe a few in the House.
I don't know what they're going to do. They aren't terribly political--I do know they voted for Bush in 2000 (at least I remember seeing a Bush bumper sticker on their minivan the summer after the election)--but whether they're Keyes voters is another matter entirely. I figure I'll start off with, "what do you think about Alan Keyes?" and go from there.
Michael Medved just called Keyes a "nutburger".
After that, he called him "deranged".
Reparations plan: "Outrageous". "Sickening". "Disgusting."
Doesn't even know if he could vote for him if he lived in Illinois - called him an embarrassment.
(Just reporting what Medved thinks.)
Tell that to the Keyes-bashers, not to me.
They have been attacking a Republican Senate nominee for almost two weeks now.
Have you participated?
I have not.
Oh, goodness, you guys, we're not going into a California Recall debate on an Illinois Keyes thread, are we, LOL :o)
The thought hadn't occured to me, but now that you mention it, it makes a lot of sense.
Why, I'll bet that if I play my cards right, I could even qualify for reparations!
See what you just backed yourself into, son? Don't you just hate when that happens?
Oh, well.
No.
The point has been made.
He bashed Arnold, but I
am the grown up (LOL).
Glad to hear it.
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