Another Ronald Reagan?

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.

Traficant was a Democrat and was expelled from the House after being convicted and sentenced to eight years in a federal penitentiary. Some of the rant that you linked is factually based. I have not tried to discover how much is conjecture or how much has been surmised.

Without substantiating anything, there is some relevant history and it does tie to the topic of discussion, forcing the federal government to live within the Constitution.

Socialism is unconstitutional.
Every socialistic program creates a block of voters.
Politicians bid for those blocks of votes by promising benefits that exceed the amount of taxes that have to be collected to pay for the promised benefits. This is the implied free lunch that every government handout offers.
The federal debt has two components. The amounts borrowed to pay for wars and the amounts borrowed to pay for the gap between taxes collected and benefits paid out under socialism. Part of the "free lunch" is hidden here. As is plainly evident, the US has never repaid and has no intention of every repaying any part of the principle. Will US creditors ever become concerned about lending money to the United States?
When benefits can not be conveniently paid through debt, the Federal Reserve makes it possible to simply print Federal Reserve Notes, as "money substitutes" to monetize any shortfalls. Inflation is said to be the cruelest tax. What has the Federal Reserve done to the value of your dollars? Click the link and see for yourself.
Democrats claim the socialistic welfare programs work and are extremely popular with the people. There is no question that these programs would be expected to be popular with beneficiaries who are in effect receiving real free money. There is no question, that people currently paying into Social Security are eagerly looking forward to collecting the benefits they have been promised as a form of "recovering some of their investment" even if they are uncertain whether they will recover all they paid in, let alone whether they have any hopes of receiving any income from their paid-in capital.
If these programs are as popular as Democrats claim or believe, why is participation in Social Security and Medicare mandatory in a supposedly free country?
Why do discussions of making these programs voluntary send Democrats and 'moderate' Republicans into hysteria?
Do these programs work? If the goal is getting votes for Democrats, they certainly worked almost flawlessly from 1936 through 1994.
If Republicans have become part of the problem, they still may be electing enough socialistic politicians to ensure mandatory participation.
If the goal is to help the American people, that is another story. The entire estimated total private net worth (corporate, charitable, and individual) of the United States is estimated in round numbers at $45 Trillion. On the other hand the estimated costs of only two of the welfare programs, Social Security and Medicare, exceeds the total projected income of these programs by roughly an equal amount.
The US Treasury allows itself the same type of accounting used by Enron and Global Crossing. It will not actually book the unfunded liabilities until the date they actually become payable. Would your accountant adise you to file for bankruptcy now before the law changes later this year if your real balance sheet looked like Enron's or the government of the United States? Technically, the US cannot become insolvent because it can print any amount of currency needed to satisfy its dollar denominated assets.
Once considered the world's only risk free investment, both Moody's and Standard & Poor's have had discussions regarding the potential future downgrading of the bonds of the United States.
The Comptroller of the Currency is on record as saying the US economy has never grown at a rate that would be needed to close the shortfall between expenses and revenues for these two programs.
In what has been described as the "Goldilocks" economy, the United States has been cash flow negative from $1.5-2.5 billion dollars every day for the past two years and the gap between income and expenditures is still widening.
You tell me what US workers can manufacture cheaper and better than Chinese or other Asian workers?
Given the data and estimates above, do you believe US standards of living are going to rise or fall?
Do you believe the United States government can pay the promised benefits to Social Security and Medicare recipients? How? Will your children and grandchildren pay the amount of tax that would be required?
History says that all democracies end in bankruptcy or hyperinflation whenever the public learns to vote itself benefits from the public treasury. Precisely how is the United States going to escape this fate?

Would any of you be kind enough to share your thoughts about the comments or questions raised above?

I will say only this. The Republican Party shall have another Ronald Reagan when it deserves such a profoundly inspiring and principled leader. Right now, the Party is overrun with Democrat-grade RINOs to the point that Conservatives, not Liberals, are maligned when the Liberal agenda fails under the Republican banner.

Ronald Reagan was once a Democrat. This much is true. And when he became a Republican, he remarked that he did not leave the Democrat Party, the Democrat Party left him. And in that sentiment, today's Republican Party — with its runaway spending, backdoor amnesty for lawbreaking invaders, inability to use its majority in Congress to any real effect, stand up for the rights of the unborn, and lack of will to stand up to the unions — has truly left Ronald Reagan.

FRiends and patriots, unless we reclaim our party as a Conservative and Constitutional Originalist bastion against encroaching socialism and Leftist radicalism, we will never have another Ronald Reagan.

And that is all I will say on the matter.

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