Our Character, Our Future: Reclaiming America's Moral Destiny (Paperback)

Keyes covers a lot of ground--teen drug use, abortion, Afrocentrism, the controversy over Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, welfare, capital punishment, anti-Semitism, etc. But as a whole his perspectives lack depth. The chapters are just too short and sketchy, and he makes too many unsupported statements. He frequently attacks the Clinton administration, and also complains about "intellectual fascists," "dogmatic liberal judges," etc. His religious references and assertions will, I imagine, appeal to Christian conservative readers.

A typically weak chapter is "Outing the Left," where Keyes accuses Clarence Thomas opponents of "anti-Catholic slurs" and abortion rights supporters of "religious bigotry" without supporting his accusations. Another noteworthy chapter is "The Rights Rage," where he suggests that gay rights activists "quit while they're ahead"--remarkably bad advice in light of the mountain of gay rights advances that have been made at so many points in both the governmental and private sectors since this book's 1996 publication date! Reading "Our Character" is like listening to a long diatribe by someone who keeps talking and talking and talking without really saying all that much.

As the only statesman and orator in America's last party primaries, Keyes is feared by some, not because he is black as Keyes once claimed, but because he is brilliant - a condition frightening to ignorance.

One of Keyes central refrains is that "we don't have money problems, we have moral problems". But morality is not fertile in the American mind through the expected and intended cultivation of education where respect and honor are reached through the application of Enlightenment reason with an understanding of natural rights, founding documents, their supporting material and the Founder's source and positions on such matters. Instead, for Keyes the moral alpha and omega are sourced in the Christian God, not reason, though he has a great talent for it. Where he fails is as a Creationist, wishing school boards across America could force Christianity into science class (tangentially referenced in his last preachy chapter). Keyes' respect for deep, open education is thus in doubt, mixed in the very least. And yet, on the contrary, Keyes has a respect for science, apparently as long as it does not squeeze his beliefs.

An Alan Bloom disciple, Keyes knows alternative ways of thinking, giving him a capacity to see beyond his time and place. With this tool his book is a bit of revelation every other page.

The interesting thought process also explores how the liberal government programs are leading this country to a socialistic society, where our very rights to earn a living and profit from it are slowly being deprived in favor of spreading the wealth to non-working recipients, without giving them any ability or desire to change their own situations. Through taxes, and higher taxes for people earning more, the government is dictating just how much of your money they can take and redistribute to people who take no responsibilities for themselves, their families, or their obligation to contribute to society rather than take from it.