“I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course. I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines. Now, one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity. The line has been used, “We’ve never had it so good…
As for the peace that we would preserve, I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely. Do they mean peace, or do they mean we just want to be left in peace? There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us. We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it’s been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well, I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago, two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee, a businessman who had escaped from Castro, and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said, “We don’t know how lucky we are.” And the Cuban stopped and said, “How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to.” And in that sentence, he told us the entire story. If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man.
This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well, I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down: [up to] man’s old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course…” – Ronald Reagan
Comments Disabled To "The Editors’ Quote of the Day:"
#1 Comment By Matt in Oklahoma On December 18, 2020 @ 11:26 am
A quote from the NWO who supported the Brady Bill
#2 Comment By Bear On December 18, 2020 @ 1:54 pm
Wow. Nothing new under the sun…
#3 Comment By Don Williams On December 18, 2020 @ 4:01 pm
1) 407,300 US military personnel lost their lives in WWII. Ronald Reagan’s military service consisted of making propaganda movies in Hollywood and keeping up the morale of the actresses.
2) Reagan ran on a campaign of a Constitutional Amendment to require balancing the Federal budget — then personally approved $3 Trillion in federal debt (almost $5 trillion in today’s terms). Federal debt was 37% of GDP when Reagan entered office — it was roughly 55% when he left and around 65% when his VP Bush was defeated.
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Reagan increased the federal debt by 180% — far higher than even Obama’s 70%. Most importantly, he started the tradition of massive deficit spending .
3) For part of his term Reagan spent 7% of US GDP on the military budget — a bunch of it going to the Aerospace division of his former employer, General Electric. He saw no inconsistency with our allies — Germany and Japan — spending less than 1% of GDP on military defense even though they were right next door to the Evil Empire. All this to defeat a Soviet Union’s whose economy was on the verge of collapse anyway.
4) Meanwhile, millions of defense engineers and military personnel — the people who won the Cold War and had devoted their lives to defending this nation against nuclear attack — were discarded like used toilet paper after the Soviet Union folded.
Without Reagan letting out a peep of protest.
5) And his VP George H Bush let us know two weeks AFTER the 1988 election that the “Free Market” consisted of $400 billion plus of our taxes going to bailout the savings and loan banks — including a number of them in Texas and $1 billion to bailout the Silverado Bank of his son Neil Bush.
6) And it was Reagan himself who laid the basis for a global tyranny — globalization. In which a few billionaires rule the world while American wages are flat for decades.
#4 Comment By Avalanche Lily On December 18, 2020 @ 4:13 pm
The Great Deception to Christians! Beware little Flock! None of them are your friend!
#5 Comment By RB in GA On December 19, 2020 @ 12:23 am
Now I apologize if this ruffles even more feathers, but I can’t let such disparagement go unanswered. All in all, your comments sound to me a lot like sour grapes. Because of that vitrol, I feel compelled to respond.
Reagan did not, in fact, start a tradition of massive deficiet spending. That was FDR, buying in to Keynsian economics as a way out of the Depression.
Now to opinion. To me, RR was the greatest President of my life. He was masterful in making Americans proud again after all the crap the previous Presidents had left as refuse on Capitol hill. He attempted to clean the tarnish from our reputation, left by the bailout from Vietnam. He wanted the western world to know we could be counted on. So what if he didn’t expect Germany and Japan to ante up more? He was of the WW2 generation, and damn sure didnt want a new version of Nazi Germany or Imperialist Japan. Have you forgotten that WE (collectively, as the Allies) saddled both countries with restrictive constitutions preventing exactly that from happening? Yes, he fed the miltary industrial complex, but he didnt birth that beast. Again, FDR’s. In defense, he felt had a cold war to win and by using our economic strength and leveraging the faith of those in Eastern Europe he and the Pope did. And for the greater part of twenty years afterwards Russia was toothless. For goodness sakes they had to sell part of their fleet to Pepsi! Expecting there not to be a downside from that victory would be pie in the sky dreaming. Every war concluded leads to a recession. Prior to quanatative easing that was basic economics- of course now basic economics doesnt exist on a governmental level.
As a President he was certainly head and shoulders above Kennedy, Johnson and his Great Society, NIxon, Ford, and the peanut farmer of shame, Carter. Though Ike was before my time, barely, he is the only one that comes close. None of the ones since have been fit to stand in his shadow. And yes, I am including Trump, who seems to be more interested in his tweets and his business empire (ever wonder why the Kurds were abandoned? Look at his business interests in Turkey) and is certainly conspicuously absent regarding the 2A, which he swore, twice, to protect.
So yes, I am and always will be a staunch fan of old Ronnie. He wasn’t perfect by any means, but he’s the best I’ve seen and the only one I feel like was truly my President.
#6 Comment By Don Williams On December 20, 2020 @ 12:19 am
I never get upset with someone for merely disagreeing with me. While I may not be always convinced, I enjoy hearing other points of view as a check on my own reasoning/knowledge.
#7 Comment By N S On December 18, 2020 @ 6:57 pm
Unless we can return this gobbermint to the values and enumerated powers listed in Our Constitution, no matter who is in charge, it’s gonna hurt. And when all is said and done, whether it’s multi-national corporations or goobermint, we are going to lose liberties……
#8 Comment By Charles K. On December 18, 2020 @ 11:38 pm
All presidents say good things. All presidents do bad things. Reagan was still right in what he says here. So we quote the good, decry the bad, and hope that the good is what makes the greatest impression.
Lincoln was a god-awful president, yet he is still revered, to the point of worship. Teddy Roosevelt was also god-awful president, yet he is still revered. FDR was a catastrophe as a president, yet he is still revered by both political parties. JFK was actually a pretty good president, and doesn’t get enough credit for what he tried to do, the reason he had to be assassinated. Jimmy Carter was a good man and a bad president. Reagan made a boatload of mistakes, yet he was far better than either alternative. So, when they are right we should acknowledge as much, but point out loudly when they are wrong.
#9 Comment By Once a Marine… On December 19, 2020 @ 3:32 am
I learned a lot from this discussion. I thank each of you for your contribution.
In the end, I confess, I agree with Avalanche Lily.
“The incestuous relationship between government and big business thrives in the dark.”—Jack Anderson
Carry on