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Dr. Keyes decries judicial tyranny
Appeals to Congress in Winder, Georgia, speech to rein in the judiciary September 18, 2003 On Sept. 11, Dr. Alan Keyes told 1,000 cheering First Amendment supporters in Winder, Georgia, that religious establishment is a matter beyond the lawful purview of the federal courts. The speech was given on the steps of the Barrow County Courthouse, where county commissioners are in an escalating struggle with the ACLU over a Ten Commandments plaque placed in the courthouse.
In remarks directed as much at members of Congress as at his listeners, Keyes
"Which part of the word 'no' do they not understand," he asked The Establishment Clause
Nor does the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment authorize the judiciary to touch the issue of religious establishment at all, Keyes declared, as he recited the words that begin, "Congress shall make no law respecting" "You would think that what I just said would be fairly clear," he suggested. Yet, for decades, Keyes noted, "The ACLU folks have been telling us, 'That means that you can't have any kind of an establishment of religion in America, anywhere at all.' That's not what the words say at all." Rather, they mean, he said, that "neither Congress, nor any other authority, agency, or branch of the federal government, can interfere with the right of the people in their states to address the issue as they see fit!" Keyes therefore urged Congress to exercise its constitutional authority and pass regulations limiting the federal judiciary to what is explicitly written in the Constitution.
He cited Article 3 of the Constitution and demanded that Senators and Congressmen, as elected representatives of the people, "stand up and place a strong wall of separation Words meant to be read At one point early on, the former Alabama A&M University president led his listeners through a simplified lecture on constitutional theory, "because," he said, "a lot of folks in the media and many lawyers in the ACLU apparently can't read. Or else, my friends, they think that the rest of us can't read."
He stressed that the Founders left us a written Constitution He then said that "the only way you can miss [what the Constitution says about the right of states to acknowledge God] is by not reading the document." "If you want to find a law on [any] subject," he said, "don't cite to me some judge's ruling, cite to me the law that that ruling was based upon!" "We do remember, don't we, that judges don't get to make laws?", chided Keyes. Dictatorship, not law Keyes noted that lawyers and judges will tell those who have the courage to stand up for their rights, "You lawbreakers! You violators!" And he responded, "But tell me. Which do you think is higher? A federal judge's ruling that has no foundation in law or the Constitution, or the Constitution of the United States, clear on the face of it?" He continued, "When the federal judges follow the law, when the federal judges respect the Constitution, then they represent the majesty of law. When the federal judges disregard the Constitution, they speak for no law, they speak for no one but themselves." Keyes added, "And when they seek to impose their personal whims upon the states and the representatives of the people of the states, they are not imposing law, they are imposing dictatorship!" In a word, said Keyes, "The federal judges, the federal courts have usurped the right and power of the people explicitly granted to them by the Constitution." Ultimate authority to interpret the Constitution
One of the seeds of judicial despotism, Keyes said, is the myth that "the ultimate authority on everything constitutional is the Supreme Court." He called this common misconception "Now, it doesn't take too much sense, does it, to realize, if I make a contract with you that says we're equal partners, and then there's a clause in there that says that you get to interpret it and I don't, who's the superior partner: me or you?" This, Keyes said, "doesn't make any sense. If the Supreme Court actually stood all by itself, interpreting the Constitution according to its whim, we wouldn't have three equal branches of government, we'd have a dictatorship of the judges!" Keyes then reminded his audience, "And not only was this not intended, it was explicitly warned against by Jefferson, by Adams, by Madison. They held up the danger of such judicial tyranny in order to make sure that down through all the generations of this country's history, we would be warned against such abuses." Judicially-imposed social disintegration
Because we have failed to heed the Founders' intent or rely on the actual language of the Constitution, Keyes pointed out, the result is social chaos enforced by "the ACLU gestapo and brownshirts [who] send their intimidating and threatening letters to folks who are only abiding by the will of the people" Declared Keyes, "Now they come against us to tear from the very walls of our courthouses those laws and commandments which we have so tried to instill into the hearts of our children!" "And before the very face of those children whom we have instructed in this law," he said, "they wish us to stand by while contempt is shown for the law of God, which is the basis of all moral discipline and true self-government!" "To what end have they practiced this abuse?", Keyes asked. "To the end of driving prayer from our public schools! To the end of banishing the acknowledgment of God from festivals and our games and all our gatherings as a people! To the end of making sure that from one end of this land to another, there would be imposed a regime of atheism at every level of our public life!" "But I'll tell you," Keyes observed. "Is it a coincidence that since this usurpation began, we have seen a rising tide of violence and crime and drug abuse in our schools? That since this usurpation began, we have watched the disintegration of our family life and the destruction of our sexual mores? That since this usurpation began, we have paid billions and billions on the crime problems and the health problems that result from the moral disintegration of our country?" "For decades, we have paid the price!" Enough is enough "I think it is clear," Dr. Keyes concluded, "We must tell it to the courts, and we must tell it to our representatives, 'Yes, we are a patient and long-suffering people. Yes, we will suffer while evils are sufferable. But this evil is intolerable, and we will suffer it no more!'" Keyes ended his stirring appeal to constitutional principle by saying, "I think it's time that we, all of us, got together in every county and in every state, and turned to those who represent us in Congress, in order to say, 'The Constitution gives you the means. We now demand the action that will protect us from this tyranny.'"
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