Posted on 11/15/2005 6:48:12 AM PST by writer33
Was Ronald Reagan truly unique? How exceptional was it that a small select group of men came along at just the right moment in time to become the Founding Fathers of what would prove to be the most extraordinary nation in the history of the world? Between the federal, state and local governments, there are thousands of elected public officials. Can you identify the ones that you believe have the characteristics or attributes of another Ronald Reagan or the Founding Fathers? Can you identify any that you believe to be equivalent to Ronald Reagan or the Founders?
AOL and the Discovery Channel recently reported an uncontrolled survey of public opinion to determine the "Greatest American" in the history of our country. There were 2.4 million votes reportedly cast. Ronald Reagan won with 24%. Lincoln was second and Martin Luther King Jr., third (23.5% and 19.7%). Washington and Franklin completed the top five (17.7% and 14.9%). In sequential order, the top ten were rounded out by George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Elvis Presley, Oprah Winfrey and Franklin Roosevelt. Voting was apparently conducted in phases of the top 100, top 25, and top 5. How the results were tabulated is not defined, but even so, the reported results are curious in that the top five polled a total of 99.86% of the reported results. There are nine living present or former presidents and vice presidents, nine current Supreme Court Justices, fifty sitting governors, and 535 current members of the United States Congress. In the reported results, no living American got even .2 of one percent. While this survey is certainly not conclusive, it offers some evidence that most Americans do not consider our presently elected or recent past leaders among the "great".
"We have the best Congress money can buy," Mark Twain. Twain died before Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt made it possible for politicians to take matters into their own hands. Closer to the truth, but still not an accurate depiction of American politics since 1932, President Reagan said, "Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I’ve come to realize there is a very close resemblance to the first.” A better definition of a "professional" politician is one who is more interested in securing their own lifetime career in office through repeated re-election than in fulfilling the duties of their elected office. And because they are more interested in their own re-election, they are willing to subvert the Constitution in order to use the public treasury to buy blocks of votes from the public. In effect, "professional" politicians have converted our "republic" into a democracy by surrogates. The Founders envisioned statesmen winning elections based on principles. In contrast, unhampered by term limits, "professional" politicians began using socialism as the mechanism for the creation of blocks or categories of voters. With the almost unlimited taxing and borrowing power of the US treasury at their disposal, "professional" politicians then repeatedly and competitively bid for, and purchased the blocks of votes which they had created with socialism. As a vote harvesting tool, state legislatures extended socialism to government jobs; think "public" education and teachers. As early as 1964 Reagan reminded us, "Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
If the Divine Hand of Providence is still watching over or guiding the path of the United States, surely there must be another Ronald Reagan or perhaps even a number of men like him in a country with a population of nearly 300 million. The first US Census (1790) taken under the supervision of Thomas Jefferson showed a population of only 3.9 million; among them were men like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison, the signers of the Declaration and the countless patriots who fought in the American Revolution. The men and women serving in the military, not only today, but also in every past generation are a testament to the fact that patriots exactly like those that fought the Revolutionary War are and have been present in our population in substantial numbers in every generation of Americans. Where are the political leaders like Ronald Reagan and the Founders? What deters them from stepping forward and seeking public office?
Ronald Reagan's two landslide elections and the 1994 Congressional elections suggest that statesmen of a caliber similar to Ronald Reagan or the Founders can defeat "professional" politicians whose re-elections are dependent upon socialism, the insidious cancer that poses what is by far the most significant threat to our freedom. And it is freedom that forms the foundation on which our civilization is built. History is unambiguous; all democracies have ended in bankruptcy or hyperinflation whenever the public learns to vote itself benefits. Could the Constitution be restored and our republic be saved or resurrected if men like Ronald Reagan and the Founders could be recruited to come forward and seek election?
Ronald Reagan was clearly the catalyst that precipitated the downfall, but socialism is what doomed the Soviet Union to the Ash-heap of History. When carefully studied, Reagan's speeches are filled with guideposts that form a road map to the renaissance that will become his true legacy. Ash-heap or renaissance are the alternatives that Reagan was actually describing in A Time For Choosing: "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 last step into a thousand years of darkness."
In the pages that follow, you are going to learn what is almost certainly the best, if not the only, way to recruit and elect statesmen made from the same mold as Ronald Reagan. Although the execution is not guaranteed to be easy, there truly is a simple way to both recruit, and elect patriots cut from the same cloth as the Founding Fathers.
Where have you gone President Ronald Reagan the United States
turns it's lonely eyes to you woo woo woo...Greatest President
ever!!! Good one Writer33
Hi bitt! Thanks for the ping.
LOL, from Heaven above!!
bump
Amen.
Amen.
It's not mine, but thanks for pinging the list, bitt.
Great picture, Phil.
It's not mine, but the writer does thank you.
:)
I think too many people have forgotten, SD.
Actually, Boazo. This one is not mine, but the writer does thank you.
On a side note, I completely agree with you. Where have you gone, Ronald Reagan?
Great picture, NM. Thanks for posting.
BTTT
Rodr88, I had such high hopes that Dubya would come close. I STILL think there is a slight chance if he would just come out fighting, take on the Demonrats and gutless Pubs. That's what I loved about Ronald Reagan.........he made no bones about what needed to be done, went head-on and had an admiring country behind him. He loved this country and was willing to fight tooth and nail for it.......damn the torpedoe's.......full speed ahead. He didn't give a rat's red arse about what people thought about him.......it was all about his beloved country and what was best for her.
People thought the same of Washington and Franklin. When Franklin died and funeral remembrances were being considered, Washington told Jefferson that the country could only do so much when a patriot died; there were after all so many famous patriots. Jefferson replied, "Mankind has set such a great gulf between yourself and Mr. Franklin, on the one hand, and the rest of humanity on the other, that what is done for yourself or Mr. Franklin sets no precedent for anyone else whatsoever." (quote close but probably inexact).For our generation the situation is similar w/ respect to Mr. Reagan. Upon his death great lines of people appeared all week long to associate themselves with the recognition of the significance of Mr. Reagan.
If FDR had understood the requirements of his own time as well as Reagan understood those of our time, the Great Depression would have been "a bad recession" - and World War II would have been a police action in the 1930s, even if it cost FDR his reputation do accomplish it. All other presidents but FDR are judged on their first two (at most) terms; by that standard FDR is a mediocrity.
Just discussed this in economics. If the Great Depression happened today, the president doesn't get reelected. So how did FDR continue to stay in office while the economy stayed in a depression? I'd agree. Mediocre at best.
The writer thanks you for the bump, E.G.C.
"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I’ve come to realize there is a very close resemblance to the first,” Ronald Reagan. A better definition of a "professional" politician is one who is more interested in securing their own lifetime career in office through repeated re-election than in fulfilling the duties of their elected office. And because they are more interested in their own re-election, they are willing to subvert the Constitution in order to use the public treasury to buy blocks of votes from the public. In effect, "professional" politicians have converted our "republic" into a democracy by surrogates."
How did they do it?
"In contrast, unhampered by term limits, "professional" politicians began using socialism as the mechanism for the creation of blocks or categories of voters. With the almost unlimited taxing and borrowing power of the US treasury at their disposal, "professional" politicians then repeatedly and competitively bid for, and purchased the blocks of votes which they had created with socialism.
As early as 1964 Reagan reminded us, "Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
BTTT
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