God Bless Ronald Reagan (1911 - 2004)
A very special American
Posted on 06/06/2004 5:29:51 PM PDT by Pokey78
Ronald Reagan had the confidence that comes with conviction, the strength that comes with character, the grace that comes with humility, and the humor that comes with wisdom. He leaves behind a nation he restored and a world he helped save.
– President George W. Bush
It is fitting that Bush was in France to commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day when he said these words on the passing of Ronald Wilson Reagan. D-Day began the rollback of fascism in Europe. Reagan led the rollback of the Soviet communism. And America has, since 9/11, taken on the rollback of the third great global bid to spread tyranny in the world in the modern era, the jihad against America and Israel.
We now look back at World War II as the ultimate war of American consensus, the war that produced the Atlantic alliance, NATO, and the United Nations. Indeed, it was obvious after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December, 1941, that this was not a war in which America could stand on the sidelines. But by this time the Nazis had already overrun Poland, Norway, Denmark, the Low Countries, and France, and were sitting on the English Channel. Yet America, to a great degree, held back.
According to his Republican opponents, Franklin Roosevelt was dragging America into war not its own. The isolationist "America First Committee" had an impressive lineup of leading lights behind them – such as e.e. cummings, Henry Miller, Sinclair Lewis, Frank Lloyd Wright, and H. L. Mencken, among others. Even the young John F. Kennedy was a junior member of the AFC at his prep school.
Like World War II, the Cold War is now viewed retrospectively through American eyes as inevitable, just, and ending in the West's victory. But as Reagan himself pointed out in his farewell address, the policies that he espoused were widely derided as "dangerous" before and during his tenure.
Reagan's critics accused him of risking nuclear war. Reagan seemed almost alone in understanding that the only way to end the Cold War was for the Soviet Union to cease to exist, and that that day would come. In the end, it came even quicker than he imagined.
Reagan was vilified at the time for calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire," much as Bush has been derided for fingering the "axis of evil." And Bush seems to have a similarly unpopular insight that the jihad will only end when the regimes that support it have gone the way of either Gaddafi or Saddam and the entire region is on the path to freedom.
In all three modern global conflicts the pattern has been the same: a Western reluctance to recognize both the scope of the danger and the power of its own secret weapon, the power of freedom. In World War II the need for complete victory was eventually recognized, but in the Cold War and the current conflict, the assumption of indefinite, perhaps even deteriorating, stalemate is widespread.
Given his focus on freedom, it is not surprising that Reagan was considered one of the most "pro-Israel" presidents ever. Missteps aside, such as the condemnation of Israel's attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981, supporting Israel came naturally for him.
In his final Oval Office address in 1989, Reagan told a story of an American sailor patrolling the South China Sea. "The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. ...As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck and stood up and called out to him. He yelled, 'Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.'"
"A small moment with a big meaning," said Reagan. "Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980s. We stood, again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world again, and in a way, we ourselves rediscovered it."
After 9/11, America rediscovered that the quest for freedom could not exclude a particularly recalcitrant region, the Middle East. It is a notion that even today is widely met with skepticism and derision. Someday, however, as in the case of other global conflicts, we will look back and see that peace was not possible without victory, and freedom was victory's measure. Ronald Reagan was the father of moral clarity. He remains an inspiration for the road ahead.
I saluted "for the Gipper" as I walked past a half mast flag this morning. I appreciated his book opposing abortion. Now, some, including Mrs. Reagan, want to use his Alzheimers as an excuse to promote embryonic research. Ronald Reagan would never have said yes to that.
May he rejoice in glory!
Again, Loserdopians will hate the comparison.
I am a Republican, not a Libertarian but I find the "loserdopian" name as helpful to the cause of reelecting the President as calling everyone who backed the war in Iraq "neo conservative....Don't lose sight of the mission by alienating ones you wish to vote for your candidate.
Ronald Reagan, son Ron, Mrs. Reagan and daughter Patti
outside their Pacific Palisades home in California. 1960.
Ronald Reagan with his
older brother Neil Reagan.
circa 1912.
Screw em...then ridicule them for their incompetence. And when they post something else...ridicule them again...they deserve no place here. They are liars without honor. They are cowards without shame. My disregard for them runs just as deep as my disregard for Hillary Clinton and any other Liberal.
They are cut from the same anti-truth, warped cloth. They suffer from the same delusional mindset...they simply focus on different subjects.
I have zero respect for them or anyone who comes to their defense or who is foolish enough to give attention to their lies.
If there is one thing on FR that I am black & White about, it is this.
;o)
Pray for W and Saint Nancy
Leave it up to VaGthang to exploit the death of a great American to further his sick agenda.
Haha... ;o)
I am not the one who seems to need to "get over" something..I am sure you are a terrific worker, campaigner for your candidate and bring many voters to the polls.
I am not certain what that has to do with this thread but do you mean to imply somehow that if I do none of the above that I then shouldn't say what I have said?
~grin~
And you served in which branch of the military?
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