by Alan Keyes

AlanKeyes.com

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

Abraham Lincoln spoke these words to the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois in 1838. They have been much on my mind lately. The election victory of a man like Barack Obama, with views that contradict all the self-evident truths our Constitution is based upon, portends the suicide of democratic self-government. Now the Republicans have elected a national chairman whose utter indifference to those same principles confirms the suicide of the Republican Party. Consider the following exchange:

WALLACE: You are one of the co-founders of something called the Republican Leadership Council...

STEELE: Yep.

WALLACE: ... which supports candidates who favor abortion and gay rights.

STEELE: Yep.

WALLACE: Does the GOP need to do a better job of reaching out to people who hold those views?

STEELE: I think — I think that's an important opportunity for us, absolutely, because within our party we do have those who have that view as well as outside.

And my partnership with Christy Todd Whitman was an effort to hopefully build a bridge between moderates and conservatives in the party. I'm a pro-life Roman Catholic conservative, always have been.

WALLACE: You also support a constitutional amendment against gay marriage.

STEELE: That's right. And the reality of it is this, because I don't think we should muck around with the Constitution. We can deal with that at the state level, OK? That's my personal view.

But the reality of it is the party has to recognize the diversity of opinion that's out there. And we're not going to get everyone to agree with the — Ronald Reagan said it best. If you agree with me 80 percent of the time, I think that's good enough. I mean, I think we can move forward on that 80 percent.

So there are some 80-percent issues out there that we can work with those within our party and outside our party and create a new bridge and a new opportunity. That was my involvement with the RLC, and I'm very happy about that.

WALLACE: But just to press on this...

STEELE: Yep.

WALLACE: ... if you believe — if someone believes in a woman's right to choose, if someone believes in gay civil rights, where's the 80 percent agreement with the Republican Party?

STEELE: It could be — it could be on our — on economics.

WALLACE: No, but I'm talking about on those issues.

STEELE: Well, you know, see — now, Chris, you've just defined — you've just defined the world in which there are issues. You've just narrowed — you've just narrowed my scope to two issues.

WALLACE: No, I'm just saying on those issues, is there 80 percent agreement?

STEELE: Well, if there — if that's the 20 percent they disagree with us on, let's work on the 80 percent where they agree with us. That's my point.

I'm not going to allow anyone to define the issues for us and say, "Well, these are the only two issues that really matter." There's a whole range of issues out there in which we can address the American people and the American people can come to our table.

Michael Steele proudly proclaims his role in founding an organization dedicated to supporting candidates who favor abortion and gay "rights." Though he calls himself a "pro-life Roman Catholic conservative" the new GOP chair shows no sympathy with the reasoning that justifies the moral views associated with the label. In his world, some people feel one way, some people another, with no sense or reason for what they do. Though he later declares "you don't give up on your basic principles," and speaks of "the core principles of this party" he cavalierly belittles the issue of respect for the unalienable right to life, an issue that directly involves the core principles of justice the United States is founded upon. Steele speaks of the deepest issues of moral concern with all the blithe indifference of a confirmed moral relativist. This attitude is characteristically liberal, not conservative. Its appearance in him tends to destroy the credibility of his conservative claims.

Are no issues more important than others? Was Abe Lincoln wrong when he broke with the Whig politicians who professed to oppose slavery, but supported slaveholders' rights? Was he wrong when he opposed the U.S. Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision depriving enslaved black Americans of the right to escape their oppressors? Would Steele chide Lincoln for wanting to "muck around with the Constitution" rather than "deal with that [slavery] at the state level." How can it be that the black American's unalienable right to liberty must be decided as a matter of national principle, but the unalienable right to life of every mother's child can be left to the will and whim of majorities at the State level?

Lincoln thought the issue of unalienable right involved in slavery so important that it justified a grievous war, even if that war continued "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword." What then of the unalienable right to life, and the millions of lives taken by gruesome abortion? Michael Steele apparently thinks that such issues of principle aren't worth losing a vote over. So Lincoln must have been mad or evil to ask so many to risk and lose their lives.

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