Obama vs. Keyes, 2004: A Breathtaking Contrast

This video from a 2004 Illinois Senate debate between Barack Obama and Alan Keyes pretty much speaks for itself. Obama speaks of Christianity and religion in general as a mechanism for advancing his political agenda (and career), while Keyes speaks of his Christian faith as shaping every facet of his life, including the political choices he makes. The contrast is breathtaking. It is a sad commentary on the state of our nation that the former is now President of the United States and the latter has been exiled to political obscurity.

An Unreasonable Debate

"Reasonable people can disagree." That is the catch phrase for dialogue between conflicting parties in our post-modern society. The underlying assumption is, of course, that two or more parties in a given dispute have equally "reasonable" arguments and that the free exchange of ideas will ultimately lead to a resolution acceptable to all involved. But in a day and age when the lines between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, good and evil are so clearly drawn, it is becoming increasingly clear that this underlying assumption is fallacious.

When did it become "reasonable," for instance, to argue that the barbaric practice of partial birth abortion--in which the skull of an almost born child is crushed and its brains sucked out--ought to be an acceptable, legal medical procedure? Well, the slippery slope to that kind of logic began when abortion itself was domesticated, using the "reasonable" language of "freedom of choice" to mask the ugly fact that an abortion always involved the taking of a human life. A civil society which values the dignity and sanctity of human life should never have allowed the terms of the debate to be defined by persons making an utterly unreasonable argument. Yet, that is precisely what American society has allowed to happen.

Those who hold the most unreasonable position are being permitted to define what is "reasonable." This has forced the most reasonable among us to conform to rules of engagement in which we must accept the reasonableness of an argument that, from our perspective, is not only unreasonable but utterly contrary to the very foundation of civil society. In other words, to engage their unreasonable opponent, reasonable people must themselves become unreasonable in order to appear reasonable within the context of the ongoing debate.

If this sounds confusing, that is the whole point. Whether the issue is abortion or any number of other moral and cultural issues, the debate itself has become unreasonable and counter-productive. The fringe has become the mainstream and the mainstream has become the fringe, yet the "debate" continues as though it were a simple disagreement between "reasonable people."

Niceties aside, we can no longer pretend that there is anything "reasonable" in the arguments for moral relativism, especially on issues as essential as the sanctity of human life, sexuality, and marriage. As revisionists and secularists continue to try to chip away at the moral fabric of our society, it is only reasonable to call their arguments what they really are: wrong, false, and, at their root, a most nefarious form of evil.

How to Stop the Slide Toward Atheist Anarchy

If school boards across the country had responded to the judicially imposed ban on prayer in the 1960's the way veterans groups are going to respond to the bureaucratically imposed ban on references to God at flag-folding recitations at national cemeteries, our public schools today might still be centers of learning, instead of war zones.

Rees Lloyd is director of the California Defense of Veterans Memorials Project and part of a 16-member detail that has performed military honors at more than 1,400 services. He says veterans -- and in particular, American Legionnaires -- are outraged by the ban.

"It's outrageous," he says bluntly. "These are decisions that should be made by the families of our deceased veteran comrades and not by Washington bureaucrats -- and most certainly not by any narcissistic, disaffected, offended atheist, agnostic, or any other [person] who is upset or offended by the word 'God' or a religious symbol which might offend his delicate sensibilities."

Lloyd vows that even if there are "a hundred-million offended atheists," he and other American Legionnaires will stand against the ban.

"We will defy this ban, pure and simple," he states. "If the families ask us to recite the flag-folding ceremony, we will abide by the wishes of the family -- not [by the wishes of] some bureaucrat sitting in an air-conditioned office in Washington, DC, or some lawyer wearing a diaper back there whose main mission in life is to protect his own behind instead of standing up for the American people and saying enough is enough."