South Carolina Republican Debate

ALAN KEYES ®, PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think the first thing I'd want to do is to restore respect for the national sovereignty of this country.

KEYES: I was very much in disagreement with our entry into the World Trade Organization. I think we gave away a portion of our sovereignty that we should never have surrendered to an unrepresentative body that can make decisions according to that treaty that would have direct affect on the lives of Americans.

It violates the fundamental principle of our way of life. No legislation without representation—representative government. I want to see us withdraw from the World Trade Organization and put our approach to trade back on a footing that maximizes the results that we get for the American people.

I'm not interested in protectionism or withdrawal from the world. But I do think, if you happen to be the sponsors of the most lucrative market in the world, that folks ought to be paying a premium price to enter this market, or else giving us something concrete in return that's of tangible benefit to the whole American people, not just to a handful of international corporations.

KEYES: Well, I think we ought to put—where nuclear weapons are concerned, we have put our own strategic safety first. I think it is very important that we take the anti-missile defense treaty and set it aside in order to rapidly develop and deploy an anti-missile defense for the United States.

I think it has been a travesty that this administration has stood in the schoolhouse door, dragged its feet, acted as if we were suppose to thank them when they were even willing to talk about this vital necessity for our national security.

No, it's time we gave the American people and the allies of this country the assurance that can come from our superior technology, make use of it to secure ourselves against rogue states and their missiles, as well as against the communist Chinese threat that this administration has contributed to.

KEYES: No, I wouldn't. And I think in fact it would be vital now, and during the course of the campaign, and also in the first months of an administration to make it clear that we were determined to work against the mobocracy, and the mafia that has taken over in Russia. And that we are going to seek to work at all levels with those folks who are actually seeking to establish real self- government, that respects basic human rights and that is also going to take an approach that removes power from the hands of those who basically have been using it for criminal purposes.

KEYES: I think we're also going to have to be clearer certainly that the Clinton administration has been, that a good relationship with the United States is conditioned on this kind of respect for basic human rights and the requirements of the people. We shouldn't be transferring capital and doing all kinds of things that send a message of business as usual to a regime that hasn't yet shown itself willing to show respect for these basics.

KEYES: See, but there is one problem, though, and I would have to distinguish myself in one respect, because if we're going to talk that way, then I think we ought to apply it to China as well. And sending a business-as-usual signal by continuing most favored nation status is wrong. We ought to take the reins of that policy back in our hands and condition each element of the trade relationship on their willingness to respect the basic requirements of decency and of our values and interests.

KEYES: But our—but our, I think our...

KEYES: Well, several things are true. One, I think we need to end the Clinton policy of interventionism on behalf of all kinds of globalist ideas and interests that are of not direct relevance to our interest or to our values. And I frankly think that Kosovo was an example of that.

I also think we ought to avoid interventions that are based essentially on exaggerated propaganda, and that set the threshold of atrocity so low that, in point of fact, other nations could use that threshold as an excuse to disrupt the peace of the world—let me finish—by going into other countries in their region on the same excuse.

We should be very careful not to become practitioners of aggression, even in the name of good purposes. I think, basically, we've got to send a message to the rest of the world, that we will not be stepping in to intervene in the affairs of other countries on any kind of routine basis, unless the level of atrocity is so clear, that it justifies violating that principle of non-aggression, for the sake of which we have sacrificed tens of thousands of American lives.

And I think it would be irresponsible to do what Clinton, in fact, has done, and take us on a road of interventionism that sets that threshold so low that I think it's a threat to peace.

KEYES: Well, we can still deal...

KEYES: I think...

KEYES: I think that what we have to avoid, however, is taking a unilateral approach in these sorts of matters that encourage other countries to shrink from their responsibilities, not to develop their capability and potential, and not to take responsibility for policing their regions of the world. They should not expect that the United States is going to come in and substitute for their responsibility. And if we encourage them to believe that that's going to be the case, we actually destabilize situations, we don't help them.

KEYES: Well, frankly, I haven't given their campaign a thought.

KEYES: I will confess, I spend too much time speaking about the moral crisis of this country, the priority that this nation needs to address, to get back...

KEYES: ... to its basic moral principles. I have a positive message of my own. I concentrate on that message because I think it's of vital importance to this country.

I frankly believe that you spend all this time beating up on somebody else because you don't have that much to say yourself. I have too much to say of a positive nature about the future of this country to worry about beating up on my opponents except when specific issues require that we call attention to differences.

KEYES: Larry, I'm sorry. I really am sitting here wondering, because I said we were going out to 202 countries, and is this kind of pointless squabbling really what we want them to see?

We're talking about electing the...

(APPLAUSE)

... president of the United States.

KEYES: But it—happened or not happened, and I don't know whether this is the influence of the media corrupting our process or whether it's that personal ambition becomes a substitute for our real focus on substance. But it seems to me we've got a lot more important things.

We have got a country that has abandoned it's most profound and fundamental principle. Killing babies in the womb every day is a contradiction...

KEYES: ... of the Declaration of Independence. We have got a country with an income tax system that enslaves its people and...

KEYES: ... and needs to put that back in their hands.

KEYES: We have got a school system that needs to be put back into the hands of parents.

(LAUGHTER) And all I'm sitting here listening to is these two guys go on about their ads.

KEYES: I know you did...

KEYES: It seems to me—it seems—let their ad people get in the back room and fight it out, and let the American people hear what they've got to hear about the issues...

KEYES: But this is the problem; once it starts, it's almost impossible to end and why?

KEYES: No. No, I don't mean it that way, though.

KEYES: No, I don't mean it that way. I mean it in the first place, you know? And I think it's time we began to ask ourselves...

KEYES: ... why it is that these campaigns degenerate into this kind of stuff, and I think I know why it is.

KEYES: I think it's because people are trying so hard to be all things to all people that they refuse to stand forthrightly and make it clear on each given issue where they stand in a principled way and simply speak the truth and let the chips falls. And so they get into this spitting match over who did what to whom, as distraction from the lack of substance in their own campaigns.

I think people need to start thinking about whether this is the kind of spectacle that actually characterizes a serious political process, because I don't think it does.

KEYES: Let me speak to this whole issue, because these folks sit here, two politicians, arguing about whether or not the people or the United States should have under the First Amendment the right peaceable to assemble and seek to petition the government and seek redress of their grievances.

I believe that all this talk where the politicians come in and say—think about this, they're going to control our ability to fund those processes through which we control their activities. And by controlling our funding, I presume they will utterly destroy our First Amendment right.

There should be no such regulation by politicians of what we the people can do in our own political process.

KEYES: All of this—all of this...

KEYES: Frankly, the Supreme Court has ruled Roe v. Wade and a lot of other stuff...

KEYES: ... and as president of the United States—excuse me...

KEYES: ... as president of the United States I will—I will sit in an office that is co-equal with the Supreme Court, in which I will have an equal responsibility with the court for the interpretation of the Constitution.

KEYES: Let me finish.

KEYES: The Constitution doesn't say that. Let me finish.

KEYES: Let me finish, Larry. I think that it's very simple on campaign finance reform. Instead of saying that because these politicians can't act with integrity, we must give up our rights, Let the ones who don't have the integrity give up their offices.

And let's have a system that's very simple. No dollar vote without a ballot vote. Only individuals capable of voting...

KEYES: Publicize—let me finish, though. Publicize it immediately...

KEYES: ... so that people will know what's what and have no limits whatsoever on the freedoms of the people of this country.

KEYES: No unions, no corporate money, no foreign money. No dollar vote without a ballot vote.

KEYES: I find it so fascinating, we talk about outsiders. I was so far outside this process at one point that the last cycle when we held this debate I wasn't allowed to participate in it.

KEYES: I think that's pretty far outside. That's right, here. And in Atlanta and elsewhere as well. The only reason I'm sitting here right now is because I articulate better than most anybody in this country what's on the heart of real Republicans and real conservatives around the country, and because I have been out there, not fighting in Washington, but fighting at the grass roots, as head, for instance, of Citizens Against Government Waste, where you value the praise, I did the work.

And so the point being that for both of these gentlemen, who have all the advantages, sit at the apex of a system that supports them in every way, darlings of the media, the person who's out there...

(LAUGHTER)

Excuse me, the person who is out there striving at the grass roots right now to organize folks because of what they have in their heart, not what I have in my pocket, is Alan Keyes, and reaching folks to such a degree that everybody, even your supporters, acknowledge that the person who presents the Republican message best is sitting here, not sitting there.

And it's about time we asked ourselves...

KEYES: Why? The question I asked. Why on Earth don't we want to send our best person to face Al Gore and Bill Bradley, instead of sending folks into the debate, the half-hearted, the unconvicted, the folks who in point of fact can't make our case as well and effectively as we should make it?

KEYES: I think—I think that what we did last time we ran experience last time and it really worked well in terms of the result.

I would love to take both of these records and sit them in an empty chair in a debate against Al Gore and see who wins.

I think that we've got to remember that what you can do to stand before the American people, articulate what's on their heart, how it relates to the great principles of this country, and how we have to address those principles in order to enter the next century with the confidence that as a decent people we will retain our liberty, not keep handing it off to the government, that's the challenge we face, in a year, by the way, when—if the spokesman of the Republican Party isn't able to meet the moral challenge of this nation's life, we will lose the election because that's where the Democrats are vulnerable.

KEYES: I question their ability to articulate on the moral issues of our time, a clear and passionate and convicted case that can persuade and move the people of this country. And if you can't do it, by the way, in this election year, economy booming, world relatively at peace, if we don't go out and attack that moral flank exposed by Bill Clinton's lying, perfidy, oath-breaking, and utter shameless betrayal of our moral heritage, we will lose and we will deserve to lose.

KEYES: Two things. I would have to say from—what would I—first, Senator McCain, you've served these youngsters enough beer. I suppose they'll look really enthusiastic.

(LAUGHTER)

I frankly, I frankly ...

KEYES: Yes, it's quite a commentary on them. But it's quite a commentary on those who would take young folks, some of them not even of age, and serve them beer. But leave that aside.

KEYES: Well, look, he—he did not do this.

KEYES: I presume his campaign did. But second point though, let's take an example of leadership—leadership in this campaign. We had a controversy over Bob Jones University and its policies, right?

KEYES: Now it seems to me, when you have a problem like that, does leadership consist of going into Bob Jones University, where serious questions, in fact, do exist about religious bigotry and racial bigotry—going in, taking the applause, risking nothing, because you refuse to raise the issues? That's what G.W. Bush did.

Or does it consist of getting on your high horse, refusing to go talk to good-hearted Christian people, because you believed a bunch of prejudicial slanders in the press, and then staying away—not even carrying a message of integrity to them?

Or does it consist, in fact, in going in, carrying a message of truth and integrity about this country's moral principles, and then looking them in the eye and saying, "I'm a black Roman Catholic Christian, married to an Indian-American women. And if you can't deal with the demons of racial bigotry, and religious bigotry, and cast them out, you'll accomplish no good for this country"?

KEYES: Which is the better leader? You tell me.

KEYES: In your...

KEYES: In your speech, sir, you said nothing about the religious bigotry and racial bigotry...

KEYES: ... that had in fact to be dealt with. On and "if asked" basis, these questions are not enough. What I did was look folks in the eye and tell them: I'm willing to lose every vote over the issue of defending young babes in the womb, and I'm willing to lose every vote over the issue of standing with integrity against religious and racial bigotry.

KEYES: What votes have these folks been willing to risk to stand for any principle?

KEYES: Well, several things. It's a whole lot easier to go meet with homosexuals when, as Senator McCain said in a meeting the other day, "I understand you believe homosexuality is not a sin." If you believe it is a sin, then going and meeting with sinners and identifying yourself in that way when you're educating your children to think otherwise is a little harder for you.

KEYES: Now, I understand that that is—let me finish. I understand that that's an issue of conscience and I'm not trying to dictate it to anybody and wouldn't try to dictate. But we are living in a society today where there is the use of coercive government power to try to prevent people from speaking out and acting according to their religious view on this particular issue; trying to define hate- crimes in such a way that Biblical beliefs are going to become incitement to hatred. A lot of the Christian folks in this country understand what's going on, but apparently these two gentlemen don't.

The other thing that I would have to say, the "don't-ask, don't- tell" policy is typical of the Clinton administration. It is a dishonest, shameful, dishonorable policy that winks and nods at gay folks to get them into the military, leaves the regulations on the books so that people in authority, if they come into information that somebody has violated those regulations, don't know whether they should or should not enforce them.

KEYES: What happens in a military when you have regulations on the books that you selectively enforce in a way that shows favoritism? You undermine cohesion, morale, respect for authority...

KEYES: ... and honesty. Military people should be "what you see is what you get," not "don't ask, don't tell."

KEYES: I think it's a little disingenuous. The rest of us...

KEYES: Let me finish. I just said a little disingenuous to pretend...

(LAUGHTER)

Hold it—that the generals came together and begged for this policy, when we good and well know that it was a policy imposed by the political forces in this society...

KEYES: ... to turn the military into an arena of sexual experimentation and the people...

KEYES: ... who are in charge politically didn't have the guts to stand up and defend their military against...

KEYES: ... pressures. That's what happened.

KEYES: That's what happened.

KEYES: I would return to the ban on homosexual activity in the military.

KEYES: Return to the ban. It's the only policy consistent with both the integrity of the military, the effort to limit sexual tension throughout the military, and the need to have a policy that can be clearly understood and rigorously enforced.

KEYES: Who—excuse me...

KEYES: ... a point of personal privilege, it is not factually on the record—you go back and take a look. Those military leaders did not favor this policy in the beginning. They were brought to favor it after political leadership failed to stand up in their defense.

KEYES: Well, let me just say, I think I'm going to wait and see. The kind of folks who are putting together the Keyes campaign will be offering an entirely different perspective on our politics, because all of them come from the grass roots of this country, and speak for its heart.

KEYES: No. First of all, I think that's a perfect illustration; this discussion of the problem we've got in the party. One individual who doesn't really accept the pro-life position of the party, and another who says he accepts it, but then takes positions that are inconsistent with it, so when push comes to shove he won't be able to defend it. And both willing to take at a personal level a position that will destroy you in debate against the Democrats.

When Al Gore stands there or Bill Bradley and looks you in the eye, one of you or the both of you, and says, Senator McCain, you said your daughter, that would be her decision. It would be up to her to decide, how on Earth can you represent a party that would take away from every other American woman what you would give to your own daughter?

These are folks—let me finish—who take a position that they can't defend and will then go out and represent us in such a way that we get defeated by our opponents. Isn't it time we...

KEYES: ... stopped doing this because this doesn't make any sense?

KEYES: See, but it's a family decision...

(APPLAUSE)

Excuse me. Let's be fair.

KEYES: Let's be fair to the American people, Senator.

KEYES: Let's be fair to the American people. You are taking a position. I'm a pro-life person. That pro-life position applies to women who are daughters and who are wives.

KEYES: We had better be able to stand before the American people and justify what we stand for in applying to my daughter and your daughter and everybody's daughter.

KEYES: And if you're not willing to do it, you can't defend our position.

KEYES: Don't apologize. Because I actually think that last sentiment is exactly right.

KEYES: Don't trust the people, trust the government. The only problem is, if you really...

KEYES: If you really—no, if you're going to—right.

KEYES: Trust the people, yes. If you're going to trust the people then why have this debate in which you have two folks arguing over how they're going to use their gatekeeper role to determine how much of your own money you get to keep? That's what the income tax system does to America.

It is not the system our founding fathers put in place. The system they put in place as compatible with the status of a truly free people, is a system where you go out, you earn $100, you bring that hundred dollars home, and until you decide what to do with it the government doesn't get a look at it. Let me finish.

KEYES: You don't—let me finish—you don't wait for the government to—you don't have to wait for some politician to give you your tax cut. By avoiding expenditures on the taxed items out there you will be able to avoid the tax. Why? Because under that original Constitution the government was funded with tariffs, duties and excise taxes, sales taxes, that you don't pay on your income. And since you don't pay them on your income, by the way, you don't get into this humiliating business of having these politicians arguing over how much of your own money you get to keep and you don't...

KEYES: Let me finish. You didn't interrupt their description of their plan, don't interrupt mine.

KEYES: One last question, because it's also true, though...

KEYES: ... it's also true, you don't have this humiliating business of politicians arguing over how much money you get to keep.

And you are also put in a position finally where you control every last dollar of your own money and you have the first use of it.

That's what we should be debating over...

KEYES: ... they shouldn't have this control they're arguing about.

KEYES: I think that's absolutely right.

KEYES: I think in fact the death penalty is required if we're to show proper respect for life in the morality that we inculcate through the law.

The law has to be the first educator, and the death penalty is part of educating people that there's an absolute line you shouldn't cross.

KEYES: I know everybody thinks that this doing some favor to a racial group, but if our police and enforcement people have the experience that a given crime is disproportionately being committed by folks from a given ethnic group, we are now going to pass a law that says you can't notice that?

I—I...

KEYES: Excuse me, no, no. All I'm saying is we're going to pass a law and we're going to enforce a law that says that we can't notice the characteristics of individuals who commit crimes and develop profiles to help folks pursue the solving of crimes based on our experience.

Experience by the way is not prejudice. Prejudice is an opinion you form apart from experience, prior to experience. An opinion formed based on experience is not prejudice. It is judgment. And I think our law enforcement officers ought to be able to...

KEYES: You know the person I would blame for that? If there are black folks out there disproportionately committing certain kinds of crime, my parents raised me to know that I represent the race in every thing I do. And I wish that everybody would take that attitude and stop committing crimes and doing things that bring a bad reputation on to people.

KEYES: That's what I resent

KEYES: I just told you who I would be angry at.

KEYES: That is wonderful, you know.

KEYES: Can I make a substantive remark here?

(LAUGHTER)

I would like—I would like...

KEYES: Excuse me. The rhetoric sounds good about ending the Clinton era and not—and let everybody be called conservative. But words have no meaning if you can apply those words to things so radically different that they have no similarities. So let's not disrespect the language.
And I find it hard to believe one is going to end the Clinton era by continuing his policies of "don't ask, don't tell" in the military, continuing his trade policies toward the World Trade Organization and China and so forth and so on, basically continuing federal domination of education, continuing the income tax system. We have folks calling themselves conservative all over the map who are just going to continue the same junk we get from the Clinton administration.

KEYES: What's the point of the label?

KEYES: I think we ought to recognize it, yes.

KEYES: Yes, absolutely. We should show that leadership.

KEYES: I think it's part of the role we play, given our position in the world, yes. Where we can play it constructively, we ought to do it.

KEYES: Well, I don't take polls in politics now, so I certainly wouldn't be taking polls in foreign policy. But I would say this, though. I hope that by that, you don't mean to imply that the president doesn't have a responsibility to develop a sound base of political support in this country for his foreign policy.

In Vietnam, we learned the horrid results that occur when you don't have that kind of presidential leadership.

So polls, no polls—you do have a responsibility to represent the American people, and to persuade them of what you are doing in foreign policy, and not to commit them to war unless they support you in it.

KEYES: I'd keep the moratorium in place for a while. But I also would forewarn people that commerce on the Internet—once the whole thing gets established, and you have the infrastructure and base for it, is going to be taxed. I think it's unfair to lie to folks about that, because eventually, as enough commerce moves into that arena, don't tell me the politicians will resist it, because they won't.

KEYES: It's the not the governors. The governors are speaking for a lot of people out there, working in the non-virtual marketplace who are going to look at it awfully strangely that they're operating a little store in their town and they're going to be taxed, but somebody who goes out to the Internet, once it is established, isn't going to be taxed. I see no grounds for it.

KEYES: Once it is established we should treat it like any other business.

KEYES: I think you have to be very careful because if you say that, then that means that somebody else, whether they're paid or not, is obliged to provide that prescription drug.

KEYES: Excuse me. Excuse me, but that's slave labor, sir. I think we need a market-oriented system that is going to provide access and benefits to all. And that's what I would work to achieve.

KEYES: We're going to have an election.

KEYES: It's in God's hands. I have no...

KEYES: God doesn't turn you down. He just does the right thing in his way instead of yours.

KEYES: Well, I think it's just very important that Republicans go to the polls and vote their heart and conscience. I've been hearing from too many people that they think I say the right things, I represent the right vision for the country, it is the way we ought to go, we need to restore our moral priorities, our allegiance to the principle that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the authority of God, reclaim our liberties, abolish the income tax, get school choice in place in a comprehensive way. And now I ask, You going to vote for me? No.

You never get what you want if you don't vote for what you believe in. If you don't have the guts to vote your conscience, then this country will never get back on the right track.

KEYES: Of course.