Government Dependency

Alan Keyes: Under Obama ‘We Shall All Become Slaves on the Government’s Plantation’

August 5, 2010

CNSNews.com – Alan Keyes, a conservative activist and former diplomat, said Wednesday that President Barack Obama and liberals in Congress are promoting a dependence on government that mirrors slavery.

Keyes appeared with more than a dozen other black conservative leaders at a gathering in Washington to condemn accusations by the NAACP that the Tea Party movement has a racist faction. Keyes said real racism occurs when race is connected to ideology -- as was the case, he said, when Barack Obama was campaigning for president.

“The notion that you owe some allegiance or vote to an individual simply because of the color of their skin" is racist, Keyes said. He said such a notion was "constantly pushed at me by the American media" during the Obama campaign, when black Americans were expected to "feel proud" of Obama.

"Why should I feel proud of someone who wants to destroy the unalienable rights of unborn children?” Keyes said Wednesday during the event at the National Press Club. “Why should I be proud of someone who, in fact, wants to return this entire country to the condition in which my ancestors sadly found themselves?”

Keyes compared the institution of slavery with liberalism and socialism.

“What did it mean to be a slave?” Keyes asked. “It meant that you actually had guaranteed shelter, guaranteed clothing. Your master guaranteed your food, your clothing, your shelter and a job. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?” he said. “That’s exactly what the Obama faction and the leftists and the socialists and the so-called ‘liberals’ want to pretend is what all Americans should aspire to."

Keyes said he grew up wrestling with the heritage of slavery and understanding its true meaning. As a result, he said,

"I have seen through that phony promise of socialism, that government-dominated largesse. It simply means that we shall all become slaves on the government’s plantation."

Keyes said Tea Party activists advocate government by consent of the people and that black liberals are using the “moral capital” earned by those who fought for civil rights as a political tool.

“That moral capital is now being wielded as an instrument of political war by those who are seeking to pretend that somehow or other there is an ideological definition of what it means to be a black American. I don’t know whether people realize how racist that assumption is."

Keyes added: “The notion that somehow or another – the fact that you take a different point of view about political issues, about economic approaches, about fundamental issues of human character and decency; that that somehow means that you’re a traitor to your race is patently racist.”