By Alan Caruba
The date was March 20, 1981 and Ronald Reagan who had taken the oath of office for his first term just two months earlier was addressing a joint meeting of the American Conservative Union, Young Americans for Freedom, the National Review and Human events.
It was a very different era. Many of the youth in the audience were members of Generation X, born 1965 through 1980, and Reagan would be in office as Generation Y debuted in 1981 through 1995. Spanning those generations was one that would fill out the present demographic of today’s senior citizens, a critical voting bloc; one that can recall Reagan’s values and hopes to see them restored.
The Soviet Union still loomed large as a threat to freedom, exporting communism wherever it could. The other threat of Islamic fundamentalism would begin to exert itself with a suicide bombing of Marines in Beirut, Lebanon, but Reagan was undaunted. He would see the Berlin Wall fall and with it the “evil empire” of the Soviet Union.
That evening the audience was buoyant with hope that decades of liberal governance could begin to be reversed. None suspected that the electorate would embrace a little known Arkansas Governor in 1993 and that the ills of a universal healthcare plan would be raised yet again to be signed into law by 2010. More than half of all Americans want it repealed.
Reagan said, “The conservative movement in twentieth century America held fast through hard and difficult years to its vision of the truth. And history must also say that our victory, when it was achieved, was not so much a victory of politics as it was a victory of ideas, not so much a victory for any one man or party as it was a victory for a set of principles---principles that were protected and nourished by a few unselfish Americans through many grim and heartbreaking defeats.”
Perhaps no defeat has been so heartbreaking as the public lapse of memory and judgment, the election of an avowed socialist, Barack Hussein Obama. Still, his repudiation has come quickly. Reagan is the spiritual father of the Tea Party movement because he believed in “a respect for law, an appreciation for tradition, and regard for the social consensus that gives stability to our public and private institutions.”
He added, “These civilized ideas must still motivate us even as we seek a new economic prosperity based on reducing government interference in the marketplace.”
In hindsight, we know that government interference in the marketplace, particularly the housing market, is the reason why the U.S. economy collapsed in 2008, propelling Obama into office.
Prophetically, Reagan said, “We must remove government’s smothering hand from where it does harm; we must seek to revitalize the proper functions of government, but we do these things to set loose again the energy and the ingenuity of the American people.”
The America he envisioned was a place where “a free and energetic people can work out their own destiny under God.”
Barack Obama, quoting the Declaration of Independence, cannot even bring himself to mention 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…”
For Reagan, the conservative goal was “to restore to their rightful place in our national consciousness the values of family, work, neighborhood, and religion” and he warned that it will not be achieved “by those who set people against people, class against class, or institution against institution.”
That was and is a perfect description of Barack Obama and a Democratic Party that knows no other way of governing and has no faith in the people.
Reagan never lost faith in the American people even though, for a while, they have been forgetful of the past, backsliding from the goals set by the Founding Fathers, robbed and wronged, but who are ready to rise again and restore America.
© Alan Caruba, 2010
Unless God strikes me down, I will be at the polls first thing tomorrow morning.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to be a part of "Poll Wars ... The GOP Strikes Back", the first of what I hope will be many episodes of the Conservative revival story in America.
Watching election returns tomorrow night promises to be an exhilarating experience. It will certainly be a welcome relief from the stream of disturbing news we've been subjected to over the last two years, beginning with election night 2008....
However, let's not forget that this is just the first episode of what promises to be a long and complicated story. We must remain focused and energetic if we hope to make it through the onslaught of distractions, attacks and dirty tricks that is bound to come our way over the coming years. It may take a while, but if we can keep our eye on the prize, and remain united, we can beat these Progressive Socialists down, and restore America to greatness.
I sense that a wonderful thing is about to happen in America, and I relish the opportunity to do my part and cast my votes tomorrow.
God Bless America!
One of the most significant problems now is that our politicians have no confidence in Americans themselves, a far cry from the 1950s. The great majority of policians think that the US is dependent on many other nations for its surival, and somehow can't survive without approval of those nations. They also think that the states are dependent on federal handouts, and the same for local governments. We have gone from being the land of the free and the home of the brave to the land of the subjugated by government and the home of the panicked.
ReplyDeleteThe UN has been a farce since its inception, gotten far worse over time, and isn't about to change for the better.
We, as a nation, have been giving away our treasure to other nations, including nations of the EU, since the beginning of WWII. Now, we have given away not only what treasure we had, but through massive borrowing, many more times that treasure has been given away in addition.
We, as a nation, do no more than pay tribute to other nations, in hopes that no one will start a war that will involve us if we keep doing so, or even get angry with us, for that matter.
What was once called the ugly American has become the pathetic American, having to apologise to all and sundry for our having ever existed. "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa" has replaced our National Anthem.
I was greatly annoyed when the liberal intelligentsia were bent on taking a great deal of my earnings, and giving them away. To fight a necessary war, certainly, to construct the highways I drive on, certainly, or even to go to space, yes indeed. The spin-off benefits from our space program were enormous, and all Americans have benefited. For federal projects and state projects which produced material benefits in general, by all means.
ReplyDeleteBut to give my earnings away to those who chose not to work? No more than stealing from me, and essentially enslaving me to work for others for no compensation for a part of each year. Giving away my earnings for the purpose of grand "alternative energy schemes to prrduce energy most will not be able ao afford to purchase? Bailing out those wealthy who were at fault for our economic crash? Abominable. I could name many more.
I was even more outraged when the Republican Party abandoned its creed of smaller and less expensive government, in favor of outspending Democrats; throwing my earnings away for no rational purpose, and for federal and state government programs which badly damaged Americans.
I know that I am hardly alone in my feelings. This is much of what the Tea Parties are all about. Now that economic times are bad, and certain to get much worse, expect even more citizens to think such as I do to come. It won't be over following this midterm election. The public is very angry at both big spending, wasteful Republicans and big spending, wasteful Democrats, and those who who would subjugate us more. The public will only get angrier without actually seeing and experiencing improvement in our economic circumstances, and less subjugation by government.
I was at the polls this morning, and was pleased to see several cars in the parking lot with "vote the bums out" and Tea Party bumper stickers.
ReplyDeleteLet's hope that tonight, there will be thousands of Conservatives out there celebrating a massive Conservative sweep, contrasting the disgusting leftist celebrations I stumbled into two years ago. Their fawning and drooling over the Obama victory made me sick to my stomach ....
Yes, I too am waiting for the early results. In the meantime, I wrote a short post today, anticipating a Democrat debacle. The worse the better for America.
ReplyDeleteI remain dumbfounded that no one seems to understand what actually, aside from government handouts, drives up the cost of government.
ReplyDeleteEvery time legislation is made into law, it requires additional administrative staff, and government employees are the administrative staff.
Politicians have been and are constantly adding new laws, without eliminating any old failed laws, each requiring more administrative staff, so the cost of government keeps going up.
There are huge numbers of laws on the books that not only didn't produce the results intended, but which were and are counter-productive to the results intended.
Our politicians need to un-enact laws by the droves. This would, in fact, reduce the cost of government, as it would reduce the number of administrative staff needed in government.
By the same token, these useless or damaging laws require that businesses have to waste a whole lot of money to meet ridiculous reporting requirements. Great for accountants, but greatly increases the cost of doing business, which substantially increases prices. To call these price increases "inflation" is absurd, but economists keep on doing so.
Cutting back on the number of government employees, when administrative staff is in fact required will only make government functions become more screwed up than they already are.
If you want to reduce the load on a horse, and the horse is laden with bags of oats, reduce the number of bags of oats on its back. Don't even consider lightening the load by taking oats out of the horse's mouth.
Our politicians need to eliminate nonproductive or counterproductive and costly laws as rapidly as possible. Just shuffling around who exactly pays the ridiculously high cost of government does nothing for our economic benefit. Contracting out the administration required does no good either.
Only by removing the burden of the hugely excessive number of laws on the books will the US survive economically.
Going back to a logging, mining and manufacturing economy would also do us a world of good, but this also can not happen without substantially eliminating great numbers of laws.