Col. Allen West talks about his inspirational trip to Rancho Del Cielo, the ranch of Ronald Reagan. Hear how the lessons of Ronald Reagan provide a path for the role of government and the growth of the economy.
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ronald Reagan. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Allen West - Ronald Reagan and American Entrepreneurship
Col. Allen West talks about his inspirational trip to Rancho Del Cielo, the ranch of Ronald Reagan. Hear how the lessons of Ronald Reagan provide a path for the role of government and the growth of the economy.
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Hillsdale College - Dr. Terrence Moore - Ronald Reagan - the Welfare State and Self-Government
"Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence."Ronald Reagan
Published on Apr 24, 2013 Dr. Terrence Moore Hillsdale College American Heritage Online Course
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Daniel Greenfield - The Good Life
Originally Published on the Sultan Knish blogModern politics is often fought on the battlefield of the 19 inch or the 50 inch screen with grim bursts of image artillery directed by experts and consultants. But for all the experts and consultants, it is the ability of the politician to communicate what he feels and believes is true that trumps everything else.
Margaret Thatcher's death has touched such a nerve because her passing takes place in the shadow of mediocrities like David Cameron who talk a great deal but say nothing at all, whose preferred form of communication is to avoid controversy. Likewise so many American conservatives turn to memories of Reagan because when they turn toward the marble mecca of D.C., all they see from their party are former conservatives scurrying to evolve into blithering idiots in time for the next election.The missing element is conviction. When conservatives remember Thatcher and Reagan, they hear the echoes of clear and principled messages. Neither of them were perfect as politicians, but their rhetoric was perfect because they knew what they believed, said it clearly and colorfully and enjoyed themselves doing it.
Modern conservative parties eschew that kind of plain talk. They flee from principle selecting candidates who speak as indirectly as possible and mean as little of what they say as they can get away with. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But no cause is advanced in the course of these evolutions from communication to obfuscation.
Conservatism never wins. It loses. It comes to be associated with slick empty men and women who smile a lot and lie a lot. And that in the long run is far more devastating than the occasional senate candidate who says something horrible or idiotic. Candidates like Mitt Romney are more damaging than a hundred Todd Akins because they fix the image of a soulless party that cares about nothing and no one.
It is better to have the public think that the Republican Party stands for horrible and divisive things than to think that it stands for nothing. There are people who will vote for horrible things... but who will vote for nothing except in opposition to the something that the other party is selling?
Conservatives bemoan that Obama, who blatantly said that he would raise energy prices, redistribute wealth, diminish national power and ram through a radical agenda, could be elected twice. And the wrong lesson that GOP leaders have taken away from that is that the country turned to the left and that they have to turn with it. The real lesson is that voters will choose a radical agenda over no agenda at all.
Obama clearly stood for something. Many of those things were lies and deceptions, others were horribly destructive, but they were there. What did McCain and Romney stand for? They stood for good governance which is an unexciting thing. It might have been enough in the past when a good work ethic, modesty and reputability were more admired than they are today. And even then candidates with an inability to communicate anything of significance would have suffered.
Today even Thatcher's ideological foes were forced to pay tribute to her. Will anyone pay tribute to David Cameron on his passing? Doubtful. He will be far less hated, but also far less loved because he will have done nothing to earn any extreme or feeling. Had Mitt Romney won and served for two terms, is there any conceivable possibility that he would have been remembered in the same breath as Ronald Reagan?
It's not a matter of the pivotal period. All periods are pivotal in their own way. Today's leaders face challenges every bit as stark as those that Reagan and Thatcher did. What they lack is the ability to transmute those challenges into transformative victories because there is no conviction behind their political aspirations.
Politics is a strategic battlefield, but it's also an ideological battlefield. Winning elections is not the same as winning the argument. And winning elections while losing the argument is not enough.Many of the candidates from conservative parties are unable to understand the ideological argument or to take it seriously. To them politics is policy and policy is non-ideological. They run on the conservative side of the aisle because it's the more reasonable camp, but they don't understand the ideas that animate the other side. They don't understand that the battle is not over individual policies, but a clash of worldviews.
In the last election, Obama articulated the campaign as a clash of worldviews. Romney did not. To Romney, this was about policies and he is still hurt and baffled that the superior policies didn't win. But to Obama, this was about the big picture ideology and that was how he fought the campaign. Instead of choosing one of the primary candidates who understood that this was an ideological fight, the leadership favored the most electable candidate who proved to be unelectable because he did not understand the terms on which the fight was taking place.
Thatcher always understood it and articulated it. As did Reagan. They weren't mere creatures of politics and policy. They understood that the politics and the policy, the task of getting elected and getting things done, was taking place within the context of a larger struggle between worldviews. And they were animated by the conviction that one worldview was healthy and the other was toxic. Their great gift was to combine that with communications skills that allowed them to forthrightly express that struggle in a way that most people could understand and appreciate.
Modern conservative parties have far too much messaging and too little message. You hear a great deal about how responsible they are and very little about what they stand for. They have a great many strategists and very few thinkers. They are political machines that no one really likes, including their own voters. They have industrialized conservatism and mass produced conservative politics with no content.
Thatcher did not work overtime to try and seem reasonable the way that her successors do. Neither did Reagan. They did not present themselves as the sane choices, but the best choices. They could compromise but their images were uncompromising. They were not laboring to the moderate alternatives to something else. Instead they became the model to which alternatives were presented. Most of all they gave everyone within the sound of their voice the sense that they knew what they were doing and that they wanted to begin doing it as soon as possible.
Winning the argument is hard, but the most important ingredient is conviction. Politics flows in tides that ebb and churn. The unshakable position of yesterday becomes the controversial one of tomorrow. There is no politically secure territory. Only territory that can be won and lost by the politics of the next day. The short term politics of the poll may win some elections, but it has no long term future. The movement that sets its agenda by the polls has no ideology. Its leaders are mercenaries who will believe and do anything if their consultants tell them to. Only the movement that has convictions can win long term victories.
All this can seem abstract, but it comes down to plain human needs and feelings. Most people vote for what they think is a good life. And they vote for leaders who care about them and will keep life good for them and their children. There are any combination of policies that can cover that ground and it is the candidate who can convincingly make the case for the good life who stands the best chance of winning in the short term and the long term as well.Thatcher and Reagan convinced millions that they were fighting for the good life. And they delivered. The damning sin that the left cannot forgive them for is that their policies, at home and abroad, succeeded more often than they failed. But they didn't convince with mere empty words, with the same tired slogans that stood for nothing and opposed nothing and advocated nothing. They did not skulk in on the heels of consultants who made them seem as nonthreatening as possible. Instead they made it clear that they were here to fight against the forces of decay, the ideologies of terror and the sense of morality that comes to every great nation in the hour of its decline.
Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan are dead now, but in life they won a victory over the seeming deaths of their nations. They came in the hour of twilight and they stepped down with the sunrise. Their victories were temporary but they showed that leaders can stand against decline and breathe new life when most of the experts believe that all is lost and that we must learn to accept that. They showed us that with conviction and courage we can resist the inevitable.
Daniel Greenfield
Thursday, March 21, 2013
Alfonzo Rachel - Racist Libertarians Have No Place in Modern Conservative Movement
Zo has strong words for neo-confederate libertarians, especially those who infiltrated the CPAC conference. He reminds viewers why some libertarians have no place in the conservative movement, and why Republicans should embrace the vision of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.
CPAC 2013 - Brent Bozell - Founder and President Media Research Center
NOTE from RG (WJF): This speech was one of my favorites."After three long days the moment has finally arrived. They’ve saved the best for last. Me.
Now, since those disastrous elections in November there’s been a whole lot of gnashing of teeth, beating of breasts, whipping of backs and all sorts of other rather silly machinations as one so-called expert after another tells us how we need to re-think our movement.
No we don’t. We need to stop listening to the advice coming from the professional politicians and consultants most responsible for those political train wrecks.
If you need someone to pilot your ship, you don’t hire the captain of the Titanic.
So what do we do? The answer is so simple, really.
If the Republican Party wants to arrest its slow, steady slide into the abyss of political oblivion, it can do so by once more embracing its conservative foundations.
A couple of months ago I was on NPR discussing this topic with NPR’s token conservative, David Brooks. Inevitably the name Ronald Reagan arose, to which he said with exasperation, “WHEN are you people going to get over Ronald Reagan? He was THIRTY YEARS ago!”
To which I replied that 30 years ago was about the last time we had a conservative in the White House. Get over Ronald Reagan? Let me suggest that we need to get over faux conservatives like NPR’s David Brooks."
Brent Bozell
Friday, March 15, 2013
RG - Ronald Reagan's Winning Conservative Strategery
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."Ronald Reagan
Retired Geek from VA (WJF)
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Jeannie DeAngelis - Paving Over History
In 1970, Joni Mitchell’s song Big Yellow Taxi was a huge hit. Forty-two years later, it is rumored that the University of Chicago wants to raze Ronald Reagan’s childhood home to clear the way for Obama’s future presidential library, which brings to mind the lyrics “[t]hey paved paradise and put up a parking lot.”
Although Chicago isn’t planning
on putting up a “pink hotel, a boutique and a swinging hot spot,” they might as well be. Why? Because next to Ronald Reagan’s quality of character, political philosophy, and love for America, Barack Obama is a chintzy imitation.The controversy over the location of the future archive started when Michelle Obama’s former employer, the University of Chicago Medical Center, disclosed potential plans to turn Ronald Reagan’s childhood home in Chicago into a parking lot for President Barack Obama’s Presidential Library. That was when it became clear that liberals will not rest until every vestige of conservatism is purged both figuratively and literally from the national consciousness and progressivism is all that remains.
By honoring Obama at Reagan’s expense, the President and his minions would be acting just like the victorious Islamic conquerors who once built mosques over sacred sites. Think about it – as liberals endeavor to subjugate conservatism, what better way to send a message of conquest than erecting a monument to Obama over the boyhood home of Ronald Reagan?
Chicago was chosen over Honolulu, Hawaii as the site for the library, which it is estimated may end up costing more than $500 million before it’s complete. The Hyde Park district, home of Obama prior to moving to Washington D.C., and now the site for his presidential library, is but a stone’s throw away from where Obama began his sharpening his community-organizing skills.
Not only that, but besides starting his political career in Chicago, the President also attended Jeremiah Wright’s anti-Semitic church in Chicago, hung around with Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn in Chicago, and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago – a subject he has proven to be vastly unqualified to teach.
Nevertheless, in anticipation of Barack Obama’s reelection, the Commission on Chicago Landmarks denied Reagan’s boyhood home landmark status in 2012 because it was deemed “not architecturally significant and the nation’s 40th president did nothing notable while living there.”
Sorry, but someone should inform the Commission on Chicago Landmarks that whatever Ronald Reagan did at four years of age is likely a lot more notable than anything 50-year-old Barack Obama has done as the 44th president.
But the worst of it isn’t so much talk of Reagan’s home being torn down to make way for Obama’s library. What is unconscionable is the plan to pave over the place where little Ronnie lived and played. Furthermore, placing a “Historic Landmark” plaque in a parking lot demeans the memory of a great president and sends a message to America that accommodating school buses takes precedence over preserving a valued piece of history.
Moreover, leveling a historic site connected to America’s most beloved conservative icon would send a strong message of triumph for Progressivism and indicate a disrespectful dismissal of Conservatism. But then again, Obama’s dog-eat-dog Chicago attitude may be why the dog-eating President would allow his surrogates to assist him in using Reagan’s former home as a fire hydrant that he can lift his leg on to send a message to Traditional America.
Four years ago, Chicago came to Washington D.C. and with it came Al Capone-style politics – political elitism, a persistent watering-down of the U.S. Constitution, deprivation of religious liberty, endorsement of collectivism in place of individualism, scorn for success, antipathy toward the military, and an elevation of government to a position of all-encompassing authority and provider. All those things, and more, are the antithesis of everything President Ronald Wilson Reagan stood for.
So, as time marches on it seems inevitable that the memory of Ronald Reagan’s inspiring words are sure to be drowned out by the sound of bulldozers, wrecking balls, and jackhammers as the future/final home of Barack Obama’s Teleprompter is constructed. Meanwhile, for Baby Boomers who understand the travesty of liberals destroying history in order to manipulate it, the lyrics “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone,” have taken on a whole new meaning.
Jeannie DeAngelis
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Star Parker - In Search of Conservative Leadership
The annual Independence Day party that I host at my home was particularly alive with conversation this year. Conversation probably not too different from what was taking place in a lot of backyards around the country.Folks are concerned that our nation is in bad shape and dangerously, maybe even hopelessly, adrift.
The choreography was in place to assure a downbeat Independence Day party for a house filled with conservatives. A listless economy, coupled with the cold shower of the Supreme Court’s decision in the prior week giving most of Obamacare a constitutional green light. To compound the injury, the dismally disappointing decision was written and handed down by a Chief Justice nominated by a Republican president and an alleged conservative.
But Chief Justice Roberts’ words captured, really, the rub of what is bothering many conservatives:
"Members of this court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgments. Those decisions are entrusted to our nation's leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them. It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices”Maybe how Roberts interpreted the constitution disappointed. But his point is indisputable. If you’re looking for political leadership, “It’s not our job.”
Conservatives are looking for leadership at this difficult and challenging time.
Maybe because the crowd at my California home this July 4th consisted of many long time Southern Californians, there was talk about Reagan.
Yes, Carter was bad. But Reagan did not just run against a bad economy and a confused, uninspiring president. He understood and believed in America – and he ran on this vision. This is leadership.
It happens that last month marked the 25th anniversary of Reagan’s famous “Tear down this wall’ speech in Berlin. The author of the speech, Peter Robinson, recalled the event in a Wall Street Journal column.
The story has been told many times. But it cannot be recalled too many times that the political professionals – the president’s advisors and the various members of the president’s staff – opposed including the ‘Tear down this wall” line in Reagan’s Berlin speech.
Despite numerous attempts to remove the line from the speech, it stayed in – because of Reagan.
This is leadership.
The problems we have today did not start four years ago. They are the accumulation of many years of a slow but consistent departure from our core principles of being a free nation, under God.
Of our now almost $16 trillion in debt – 100 percent of our GDP - $5 trillion was added over the last four years. But ten trillion – almost two thirds – was added over the last twelve years.
Forty percent of our four trillion dollar federal budget consists of inefficient entitlement programs tilting into bankruptcy. These are old and outdated programs – Social Security going back to the 1930’s, Medicare and Medicaid to the 1960’s.
Our public school systems hold 60 million children captive by teachers unions that are dedicated to left wing ideas and moral relativism.
The traditional American family is becoming a relic of history. Out of wedlock births and using abortion as birth control have become fixtures of our society.
When Reagan ran for president in 1980 health care expenditures consumed 9 percent of our GDP. Today they consume 18 percent. We have a health care problem with or without John Roberts’ unpopular decision.
Real recovery is impossible now without inspired leadership dedicated to recapturing principles of limited government, individual freedom, and the traditional values that made America great.
The left has a leader. He is in the White House and he is leading us into oblivion.
Where is conservative leadership? Leadership that will remind us that American community is defined by personal responsibility – not by government mandates?
Star Parker
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Ronald Reagan - D-Day speech in 1984 one of Reagan's most memorable
In one of the most memorable speeches of his presidency, Ronald Reagan stood at the beaches of Normandy and described how Army Rangers on D-Day had scaled cliffs and defeated enemy troops who were firing down on them."The air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon. ... The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers at the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. ...Two hundred and twenty-five came here, After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. ... These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."
1984
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Ronald Reagan - Mondale Debate
The 1984 election was virtually over before it began. During his first term, Ronald Reagan had established himself as one of the most popular leaders of all time. The chant at the Republican National Convention of "four more years" would not be denied. After the convention, the President's Democratic rival, Walter Mondale, mounted several solid attacks on Reagan's record and apparent lack of knowledge on certain issues. Reagan simply laughed off the charges and used his fantastic sense of humor to deflect the criticism. To Mondale's dismay, it seemed as if nothing could stop another term for the Reagan-Bush team.October 21, 1984
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Ronald Reagan - State of the Union 1983
In Ronald Reagan's 1983 State of the Union Address, he declares that America is on the mend. He starts with a hopeful note of what the American people can accomplish together. He states that the economic problems concerning the federal budget, unemployment, inflation, and interest rates will be met with a four-part plan to increase economic growth and reduce deficits. He also provides reports on international trade, technology, education, criminal justice, national defense, and foreign policy. He lauds the american people for leading in the economic recovery program and being responsible to putting America back on top.Monday, May 7, 2012
Ronald Reagan - A Time For Choosing
Reagan made the speech A Time for Choosing in 1964 in support of presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. This speech marks the beginning of Reagan's political career.October 27, 1964
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Ronald Reagan - Evil Empire Speech
When President Ronald Reagan spoke to the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) in Orlando, Florida, on March 8, 1983, he used the term evil empire to describe the Soviet Union. Millions of Americans heard or read the phrase and remembered it for years; it was powerful language that in Reagan's view explained why the United States had been locked in a cold war with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics since the end of World War II. The speech, which came to be known as Reagan's “Evil Empire” Speech, was not mainly about the cold war, the Soviet Union, or international affairs, however. It was about moral values, particularly how they underlay American democracy and how political disagreements were often, at bottom, moral conflicts. Reagan delivered the speech at a time when his defense and foreign policies divided the American people. He was hoping to enlist the members of the NAE and other Christian conservatives to support his national security policies.March 8, 1983
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Ronald Reagan - News Conference
"From the day our administration took office, our top priority has been to rescue this economy from years of government mismanagement. We inherited the highest rates since the Civil War, the first back-to-back years of double-digit inflation since World War I, rising budget deficits, and a national debt ready to break through the trillion dollar barrier.For years, government spending and taxation have grown faster than the underlying economy. The American people elected us to reverse that trend, and that's what we've begun to do. Our program has only been in effect for some 40 days, and you can't cure 40 years of problems in that short time. But we've laid a firm foundation for economic recovery in 1982.
...We have no plans for putting Americans in combat any place in the world. And our goal is peace; it has always been. And at the end of this month, we will go into negotiations with the Soviet Union on what I hope will be reduction of the theatre nuclear weapons in Europe to the lowest point possible."
Ronald Reagan
November 10, 1981
Friday, May 4, 2012
Ronald Reagan - Remarks and Q & A with reporters on the Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) strike
President Reagan's remarks and Q & A session with reporters on the Air Traffic Controllers (PATCO) strike.August 3, 1981
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Ronald Reagan's 1st State of the Union Address
President Reagan's State of the Union Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Program for Economic Recovery.February 18, 1981
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Ronald Reagan News Conference - 1/29/81
"All of us should remember that the Federal Government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files, and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control. I do not intend to make wildly skyrocketing deficits and runaway government simple facts of life in this administration. As I've said, our ills have come upon us over several decades, and they will not go away in days or weeks or months. But I want the American people to know that we have begun."Ronald Reagan
January 29, 1981
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Ronald Reagan's 1st Inaugural Address - January 20, 1981
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."Ronald Reagan
January 20, 1981
Monday, April 30, 2012
Ronald Reagan Debates President Jimmy Carter
The full-length 1980 Presidential Candidate Debate between Governor Ronald Reagan and President Jimmy CarterOctober 28, 1980
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
President Reagan - We Must Fight
"You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."Ronald Reagan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)