JLA, Alan Keyes speaks from the heart and reminds us all what this was all about....
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FRIDAY
FEBRUARY 12
1999
Alan Keyes
Turning our flag upside-down
Expecting news any moment of the perjurious Senate vote to acquit President Clinton, I have a proposal to make.
After the Democrats stick together in a solid and corrupt criminal phalanx to defend our felonious president and permit him to remain in office, American patriots should wear and exhibit our nation's flag turned upside-down as a symbol of the nation's distress -- as long as this criminal element remains in power in the White House. I am now wearing an American flag pin upside down on my lapel -- and I will keep that flag there until the criminals leave the White House.
It is crucial that we not forget this perjurious vote, and the upside-down flag will be a great symbol to help us remember. All Americans who are distressed at the fact that Bill Clinton remains in office should get and display an upside-down flag, so that when our children ask us why it is turned upside-down, we can explain that it is a symbol of distress for the nation, to be displayed as long as Bill Clinton remains president of the United States. It will be a visible sign of unity among those of us who understand what a body blow to the nation's conscience and moral integrity we suffer from the perjury of senators forswearing their oaths so they can stand with this criminal and leave Bill Clinton where he is.
Let us review yet once more some of the actions that demand the removal of our criminal president, so that we can rightly judge the character of the people and the party who are so determined to leave him in office.
Bill Clinton went before a court of law, swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, and then lied. He repeated this lie before the grand jury. This must be seen in the context of the fact that he is President of the United States, the chief executive officer, and that he stood before the country, and God, and swore an oath faithfully to execute the law. Instead of abiding by that oath, he assaulted one of the most important principles of justice -- that witnesses in court must tell the truth, and that the oath they swear to tell the truth is foundationally important -- indeed, sacred. By this perjury he forswore as well his oath of office as president of the United States.
By forswearing himself and violating his oath, he has undermined respect for the integrity of oaths. But oaths bind our Representatives and Senators, our federal officials, our diplomats, and most importantly of all they bind our soldiers. What might the actions of Bill Clinton unbind? What will be the consequences if our military people -- controlling and wielding the military power which is supposed to defend us but could, if abused, enslave us instead -- show the same contempt for their oaths that the president has shown for his?
He also acted in ways that caused others to lie and obstruct justice, and therefore again violated his oath faithfully to execute the laws. He has set an example that thoroughly undermines the integrity of government and the Constitution, including, but not limited to, the destruction of the moral credibility of the executive branch.
This is the man that the Democrats in the Senate will unanimously vote to keep in office. What does this tell us about them?
The Democrats have decided they will close ranks around the criminal element now in control of their party. In doing so, they have surrendered the moral heart of that once decent party. They have shown themselves willing to ignore the Constitution, ignore the law, and ignore the degradation of the presidency. These actions reduce them in fact to the same kind of instrument of lawlessness that the Communist parties proved themselves to be in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. In this condition, the Democrat Party has become an ominous danger to the future of ordered liberty in America.
The party of Bill Clinton has become the criminal party. Sweep aside all the mealy-mouthed verbiage by which they pretend to justify themselves and we are left with the plain fact that the Democrats are acting criminally because they are closing ranks around a criminal president. Senate Democrats literally perjure themselves, because they swore they would judge this case according to the law and the Constitution, and instead they are deciding according to the polls and political expediency. Sen. Robert Byrd looked us in the face over the weekend and said that although President Clinton is guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors he will turn his back on that truth in order to serve the political and partisan bigotry of his party at the expense of law and the Constitution. That is criminal behavior; it is the act of an accomplice.
Everybody in the country understands that the president is guilty of forswearing his oath, obstructing justice, and perjuring himself. But the Democrats have closed ranks in a criminal conspiracy to defend this wrongdoing, and to make sure that Clinton is not held accountable for his actions. In so doing, they are making themselves an instrument of his criminality. They are planting deep into our politics the potent seeds of totalitarianism by embracing the doctrine which says that any president is above the law, and so equal justice will not be applied to him.
We are seeing the creation of an immoral instrument of political power, called the Democrat Party, that subscribes to the same view held by tyrants, by Communists: the end justifies the means, and if "party people" are doing something for approved policy reasons, then they are above the law.
It is untrue to say that what they do now to defend Bill Clinton's depraved personal behavior they would not do in the future for the sake of approved liberal policies and goals. The Democrats have banded together around Clinton for reasons of power and political expediency -- their success here in depriving America of justice will be a precedent eagerly followed in years to come.
We all know that Bill Clinton is guilty. We've seen the evidence, and even key figures on the Democratic side have admitted it. Even his own defenders didn't really try to exonerate him. The Democrats are not denying, but rather ignoring, the truth of his guilt in order to keep him in place. This result has been achieved by a combination of political expediency and the mobilization of political thuggery -- tactics of blackmail and character assassination -- that in this instance has proven overwhelmingly successful with the Democrats, and has had its effect also on some Republicans.
So if this approach of political thuggery and blackmail -- the machinery of political intimidation that the Clinton administration has mobilized -- has been successful in this case, what makes us think they will not use it again in the future for whatever goals they seek to pursue in policy and governance?
This is the real and ominous situation that we face: that business as usual is over in our politics now that we have a party which disregards the law, disregards the Constitution, and openly refuses to permit its leader to be subject to the same law and justice as other Americans. This is why the acquittal of Bill Clinton inaugurates a profound degradation of our politics. It means that we are moving from the politics of open political discussion, competition and real liberty, into the politics that was characteristic of Eastern European and other Communist societies where the mobilization of such thuggery eventually included actual physical destruction or abuse, imprisonment and intimidation for the sake of holding on to power and preventing challenges to dominant ideologies and policies.
Unless we make strenuous efforts to turn back and defeat the new criminal politics of the Democrat Party, the actions of that party will fundamentally alter the nature of our political lives in such a way as to make our freedom meaningless. Liberty and rule of law are directly threatened by a party that has made clear it is willing to be the instrument of naked, raw political ambition, without regard for law, Constitution, truth, integrity or honor. A party that is willing to put aside every other consideration in order to be an instrument of the ambition for power of those who control it, is a danger to liberty in and of itself. This was proved repeatedly by the tyranny that came out of such parties in the Communist world.
The true significance of the Clinton episode is that the Democrats have now become such a party. Those in the Democrat Party whom one would have expected to stand for American principles have not done so. No champions have arisen among the Democrats for the American belief that at the end of the day there are principles of law and process that must be respected, and that actually take precedence everywhere and always over desire for particular results at any given time. Apparently, the folks we might have expected to come forward and defend the integrity of that American -- and constitutionalist -- viewpoint, were silenced in the face of the machinery of political thuggery and intimidation.
The fact that today this criminal element has been successfully mobilized in order to defend the criminal actions of the President will lead naturally to similar mobilizations for achieving policy and other political goals. How will the people who have, in effect, said that they don't care if Bill Clinton is a criminal because "he is doing a good job" respond when he tells them that now they must help him commit a few more crimes in order to successfully "do what we want to do" in politics? Having permitted him to remain in office despite committing crimes to satisfy his personal lust, will they deny him their support if he commits crimes to advance the liberal political agenda? Who are we kidding? If Bill Clinton's liberal colleagues are willing to tolerate his crimes that don't directly benefit the liberal cause, they will certainly tolerate such crimes that do benefit liberalism. Already we have altogether too many people in the Democrat ranks who have in effect announced that they will be like the loyal party cadre of the Communists in the Soviet Union: they will applaud whatever crimes their leaders commit in the name of their party's power and agenda.
The unified and successful Democrat effort to acquit Bill Clinton in the Senate despite his manifest guilt is a dangerous turning point in American political life. The new criminal party that the Democrats have now become will be the most lasting legacy of the Clinton impeachment. We must defeat this criminal element, and the party it has now crafted in its image. But to do so, we must first resolve to recognize and remember the true significance of the perjurious Senate acquittal. Liberty topples, and they have turned our flag upside down. Let's wear our sorrow over our hearts and hoist it high on our flag poles -- so we can remember what has been done and never rest until we have put things right. |
