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Alan Keyes on the issues

On his political priorities

I aim to strengthen the foundations of political liberty in America. I believe that it remains the destiny of the American people to uphold the right of all humankind to practice responsible self-government.

Dedication to this Providential purpose is the heart and soul of what it means to be an American. I will labor to: abolish the income tax; liberate entrepreneurial and charitable initiative; honor marriage and the family; respect the equal dignity of all human beings, born and unborn; reclaim American sovereignty from global bureaucracy; and show, by word and deed, the role of statesmanship in a free republic.

On the need for moral leadership

America's most pressing problems are rooted in the decline of our moral identity. Crime, rampant illegitimacy, the deteriorating environment in many of our schools, and especially the spectacle of national shame that unfolded during the 90's in the Clinton White House, all these can be traced to lack of respect for moral principle.

Since we are in the throes of a national moral identity crisis, we can no longer follow leaders for whom the moral challenge facing this nation is an afterthought. We need leaders who can articulate a principled vision of who we are and aspire to be.

On the Declaration of Independence

As a free people, our way of life depends upon certain moral ideas. As a matter of personal conscience, I believe that Christianity most perfectly embodies those ideas.

But since Americans come from many different religious backgrounds, in dealing with issues of public policy we must derive these ideas from sources that are open to support from all the people.

Nothing meets this purpose more completely than the principles and logic of our own Declaration of Independence, so I have made it the explicit basis for dealing with the moral crisis we now face.

The Declaration is fundamentally a statement of the principles of justice that define the moral identity of the American people.

On the source of our rights

We have forgotten the principle that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God. . . .

You can't have it both ways. Either our rights come from God, as our Declaration of Independence says, or they come from human choice. If they come from human choice, then our whole way of life is meaningless, it has no foundation.

On the role of government

All human beings are created equal. They need no title or qualification beyond their own simple humanity in order to command respect for their intrinsic human dignity, their "unalienable rights."

The purpose of government is to secure these rights, and no government is just or legitimate if it systematically violates them.

On three main areas of national decline

Through the imposition of the income tax, we have surrendered our economic sovereignty--the control of our money. Through the acceptance of a government-controlled school system, we have surrendered our educational sovereignty--the control of our future. And through the acceptance of a moral relativism that rejects the most basic premise of our way of life [i.e., the belief in divine truth], we have surrendered our personal and individual sovereignty, which is the foundation of our discipline, and our freedom.

On separation of church and state

The "separation of church and state" doctrine is a misinterpretation of the Constitution. The First Amendment prohibition of established religion aims at forbidding all government-sponsored coercion of religious conscience. It does not forbid all religious influence upon politics or society.

On school prayer

If they tell us that we cannot pray in the classroom, we should pray. If they tell us that we cannot pray in the hallways, we should pray. If they tell us that we cannot pray at the graduation ceremonies, we should pray. Because what they are doing fundamentally violates probably the most important of our God-given rights, which is the right to appeal for aid to our Almighty God.

When the tyrants who seek to oppress you tell you that you cannot even appeal to God for His aid, you know that they have in mind a tyranny without limit. We are allowing ourselves to be put in a situation in which that which actually provides the foundation for the most reliable courage against tyranny is interfered with, and in which our children and others are given the feeling that there is some place in American life--indeed, a growing number of places--where they must feel fearful and hesitant to call upon and to speak the name of God. And in my opinion the proper recourse against this is not to wait upon the courts, legal procedures and so forth, but simply to do what we unequivocally have the God-given right to do--to pray WHEREVER and WHENEVER we feel that it is necessary for us to pray.

On school choice

I support school choice. Parents should be able to send their children to schools that reflect their faith and values, schools of their choice, where they can have an influence over a curriculum that goes beyond just what information kids are given and that affects how their consciences will be shaped, how their character will be developed.

Above all, we must break up the government monopoly on public education.

On abortion

I think, given what the courts have done, we have to have a human life amendment, yes. [The courts] have violated the very terms of the Constitution itself. They act as if the unborn are not mentioned in the Constitution, and again, they lie. In the preamble to the Constitution, regarded as an important and preeminent statement of the goals and purposes and principles of the whole form of government we have, the Constitution [says] that our aim is to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Our posterity are those not yet born.

On replacing the income tax with a national sales tax

The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed.

The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government. No mere "reform" of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only abolition of the income tax will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business--not the government's.

Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. [It] would also put the American citizen back in control of fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can't spend what they don't get. With a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government--and give ourselves a tax cut--whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits.

On details of his national sales tax proposal

Well, poor folks wouldn't have to pay taxes, because the proposal that I support would include a market basket of goods and services in all the basic areas of necessity and requirements of life that would be exempt from taxation.

Right now, people say we have a progressive income tax, [that] the rich people pay more. [But in reality] the working stiffs of America end up bearing the brunt of taxation.

Most of the money collected in the income tax comes from brackets $50,000 and below, from working people. The way in which my proposal helps them is it gives them back control of their money. Until they decide how to spend it, the government doesn't get to tax it, and if they spend it on the basic necessities of life, people who are poor, people who are on fixed incomes and so forth and so on, they wouldn't have to pay taxes.

But also other people who are at a time in life where maybe they're saving for the down payment on their house or trying to do something else, they would be able to give themselves tax cuts just by controlling the pattern of their consumption.

So, it puts everyone--poor and working people--back in control of their own economic life.

On the Second Amendment

The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is in jeopardy these days--dangerously so. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure that we will remain an armed people, able to defend our liberty.

In our defense of firearm rights, we must emphasize this fundamental purpose of the amendment. If we leave the impression that we think that the right to keep and bear arms concerns hunting and sports shooting, and making sure Americans have the right to entertain themselves with guns, we will actually contribute to the false view that the Second Amendment is an historical curiosity, hardly deserving the effort it would take to officially remove it from the Constitution.

The right to keep and bear arms derives from our duty to retain the basic means necessary to defend our country and our liberty. Certainly it is true that the actual defense of our national borders is normally delegated to the professional military. But we must never think that this revocable delegation of responsibility for national defense is a transfer of ultimate responsibility. We, the people, are responsible for the defense of country and liberty, and the Second Amendment is crucial to our performance of that duty.

On racial quotas

In the 1960's, the civil rights movement sought the assistance of government to enforce the fundamental principle that all men are created equal. But today's civil rights groups have abandoned that principle in favor of preferential treatment for groups defined by race or sex. This is simply wrong. We cannot cure injustice with another injustice.

Moreover, preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. It is merely another government patronage program that secures money and jobs for the few people who benefit from it, and breeds resentment in the many who do not. It divides us as a people, and draws attention away from the moral and family breakdown that is the chief cause of the despair and misery in which too many of our fellow citizens struggle to live decently.

In 1996, the voters of California adopted a simple and fair prohibition of preferences and repeated the principle of non-discrimination. The Federal government should follow California's lead immediately.

On saving the family farm

The resilience of our spirit as a people, the characteristics that have made us strong and provided the foundations for much of this nation's success in the world, are rooted in the moral culture of the family farm. . . . [But] we can't save the family farm with economic arguments, because if Money is God in American politics, the agri-business corporations will control agricultural policy in America. To protect the family farm, we need to move beyond economic arguments to generate a sincere and permanent commitment to the human institution involved.

On U.S. interventionism in the world

I would want to renounce the idea that we have the right to interfere, in an aggressive way, with the affairs of other [nations]. I think we can play a constructive role in trying to bring about diplomatic solutions in different parts of the world, but I do not believe that when our ideas are rejected, we should resort to war in order to force people to accept a deal that's dictated on our terms.