Arguing for Infanticide, Part 2

I'm sort of sitting here, wondering. Because I read this piece through because I think that what Michael Kelly talks about here, and this piece by Steven Pinker in the New York Times, is a watershed in the moral life of America. And the fact that this individual is on the pages of this supposedly reputable newspaper, saying the following -- "No, the right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess." Did you get that? Y'all don't understand what's going on here, do you? And the reason I say that you don't understand it is because I am sitting here . . . when I say something and you really get the point of what's going on, you'll immediately call in and you'll comment, because your gut feels it. And this kicked me in the guts.

Do you know why? It kicked me in the guts because right there is the confirmation that the intellectual so-called "elite" in this country has utterly rejected -- utterly, totally and completely rejected -- or is in the process of rejecting the principle that protects your life and mine from arbitrary abuse by people who happen, for whatever reason, to have power enough to abuse us. Since what is he saying here?: "The right to life must come, the moral philosophers say, from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess." That is a lie. No moral philosophers would say that that is where the right to life comes from. The moral philosophers who articulated the moral foundations of this country didn't say that the right to life comes from "significant traits" that we human beings happen to possess. They said, very simply, that the right to life comes from the Creator, God. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The rights come from God.

Now, you reject that idea -- which, of course, the abortion argument does; you reject that idea -- which, of course, the evolutionary sort of science does, and moral philosophy; you reject that idea -- which evolutionary psychology does -- and what happens? Then the right to life comes from "morally significant traits." Now, who determines what's a "morally significant trait"? See? Haven't you figured it out? Once we say that your right to live comes from "morally significant traits," then the whole question becomes, "what's a morally significant trait?" How about I.Q.? Is it I.Q., maybe, a "morally significant trait"? How about skin color; is that a "morally significant trait"?

Do you know, the answer to that question, my friends, is that a "morally significant trait" will be whatever you can persuade enough people is a "morally significant trait." That's it. And if I can talk people into believing that I.Q. is morally significant, then we can kill all people below a certain I.Q. level. And if I can talk people into believing that a certain ability to articulate -- it's even said here, you know: later on, you did hear, right, that this person from whom Pinker quotes says that some people would argue that up to the time an organism learned how to use certain expressions, it would be permissible to kill them. That is a way of saying: "If you're not articulate, if you can't speak the language we want you to speak, then we can kill you."

You don't see where this is going? I'll tell you where it's going. It's going into the belly of the beast, that's where it's going. It's going into the heart of Nazi Germany, that's where it's going. It's going into Auschwitz; it's going into the concentration camps of the Nazis, that's where it's going. And it's not going there in Germany; it's not going there in Beijing; it's not going there in the Soviet Union. It's going there in the New York Times; it's going there in YOUR country.

And that means that the challenge that will exist now is not going to be a challenge for somebody else. You are going to have to make up your mind whether you accept this Nazism. You're going to have to make up your mind whether you are going to stand up and give the salute to this drivel, or whether you're finally going to take a stand and do something to oppose the sickness that has been stalking this country ever since Roe vs. Wade. That's what this is about.

Do you think that people are finally going to come to realize this? Do you think they are finally going to see it and start to stand up and realize that this is the most critical issue we face? We are going down the road to that Nazism, in America. And it's right there in the New York Times.

I have told people this for years. And I will, right now, say: "I told you so! I told you so!" And if only we will listen, we may be able yet to avoid the worst. But will anyone listen?

(BREAK)

We are talking about the clear sign that infanticide is being promoted now in America into a position where it will be intellectually respectable, defining a kind of new extreme. The present extreme is Mr. Clinton and Christy Whitman -- partial-birth abortion -- which, unhappily, has now been legitimized by some pro-life leaders, who went in there supporting Christy Whitman even though she crossed that line into moral extremism. But now Mr. Kelly comes forward, and he talks about Mr. Pinker, an article in the New York Times -- not some Podunk newspaper, not some fringe, loony-tunes eugenicist journal: The New York Times -- and Mr. Pinker, who is supposedly an established, reputable scientist, with a growing reputation, arguing infanticide is okay.

And so the new extreme will now be that we get to kill our babies! I told you this. For years I have told people: go down this road; remove the protection of principle from human life; and it becomes entirely a matter or arbitrary decision whether it's in the womb, out of the womb, a week out of the womb, five years out of the womb, eighteen years out of the womb, or no relation to the womb, once you have established the criterion that says that human rights -- the right to life -- must come from morally significant traits that we humans happen to possess. And if you are found to be deficient in those traits, I can kill you.

You don't get it yet. You guys don't see what's going on right in front of your eyes. Or you think they'll just come for somebody else, don't you? Those of you who are old enough ought realize that one of the morally significant traits that is already wandering around out there as a potential one is youth. Youth: when you get too old. You haven't figured it yet, have you? This argument over hear, which says it's our decision to make, which says morally significant traits are needed; and that argument over there on euthanasia, which says that when you reach a certain point of pain and age and uselessness, you ought to kill yourself. And when you put the two things together, it becomes "we'll kill you." But the older people in this country don't see what's coming; you just don't see it, do you? Or you don't want to see it. I don't know which. But it's headed towards you like a freight train, and it's going to hit you by the millions, maybe before too long.

Because this kind of argument, in a decent society, should never even appear on the horizon. And I will state unequivocally -- I have thought about this in the course of my life; I don't know if any of you have -- have you ever thought about what you would have done if you had been a German in Nazi Germany? Have you ever thought about that? Have you ever thought about whether you would have showed up at the rallies, and done the screaming and yelling, and been one of Hitler's fans, or whether you would have been in the dangerous level of helping people to try to escape from Nazism; or maybe you would have been among the resistance, the people who actually decided "I have to fight this evil." Where would you be? Where would you have been?

As a nation, we were on the right side in the war against the Nazis and their depthless evil. But now, it is no longer a question of international relations, because this argument -- this little Nazi argument -- this is right here in America, right now, being made in a supposedly respectable newspaper. I've always told you that the New York Times' real motto is "All the lies we see fit to print," and this kind of filth proves it. Doesn't it? Yes it does

So we sit here looking at this go on, and don't we have to ask ourselves what stand we would take? If it became the law of the land -- if the Supreme Court, in its infinite depravity, were to decide that this kind of thing were acceptable -- you'd just sit back, wouldn't you? The final step taken, on the road to Nazism, and you would just sit back and take it. "Yes, that's good; let's accept that; let's be quiet about that; don't want to be seen to say anything about that."

At what point does it become unconscionable to simply sit by while evil possesses your land; while it destroys the law; while it claims innocent lives? At what point do you become culpable, when you are no longer able to say, "This isn't my business."?

It IS your business! It's our business, if this stuff goes unopposed! It's our business if it takes over the conscience of America! It's our business if, as abortion has done, it ultimately determines the law -- that's our business! Because this is government of the people, by the people, for the people; we sit back and allow the principles of justice to be destroyed, and we the people are responsible.

But there I go again. That's probably just me being angry and mean-spirited, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. I should follow the rest of the talk show hosts in America. I should sit around, and we could talk about things that will make you laugh today. We could talk about things that will focus you on stupid frivolity. And while we sit on the cart carrying us to the charnel house of history, we can laugh it up, have a good time.

I think sometimes we need to put that beside us, and realize where we are headed. And we are on the road to a great self-destruction that is already taking place. And that destruction, which ends up claiming lives in the womb, and children in the hospitals, and young lives in the streets -- it starts with the corruption of our heart and of our consciences. It starts with arguments like this, purporting to give intellectual respectability to that which can have no respectability, intellectual or otherwise.

And so what do we say? What do we decide to do? Nothing. We're just gonna sit on our hands. I'm sitting here realizing that y'all won't even pick up the phone and say anything about it; it bothers you so little that you don't even want to talk about it.

You know how I am on this show sometimes. You realize that, don't you? When I see something like this, which I absolutely know . . . I know, that though some people may not realize it, this thing is probably the most important thing that happened in America in the last week, was that respectability was given to this evil principle. The most important thing. And the response -- the absolutely necessary response -- is that we have to stand up and squash this right out; before it gets anywhere, we must show that it will have no truck in America, it will have no ground given to it in America. And if we give it even a moment's notice of ground, then it's gonna take the place over. And the next century will be a century of such evil I don't even want to contemplate it.

(To be continued)

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Alan Keyes Showroom