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Ronald Reagan Started a War That Rages Today
WSJ.com ^ | June 11, 2004 | Daniel Henninger

Posted on 06/15/2004 4:15:49 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch

Edited on 06/15/2004 5:11:41 PM PDT by Admin Moderator. [history]

Liberalism would not go quietly into the night.

Next to Abraham Lincoln, Ronald Reagan was perhaps the most divisive president in the nation's history. Lincoln ended a way of life for the American South. Reagan said that he was ending a way of life for American liberalism. As with Lincoln, the challenge Reagan posed to his opposition was not merely political or economic. It was profoundly moral--and so worth a death-struggle. The tensions and bitterness evident in the body politic today, and in the current presidential campaign, arrived in Washington in 1981 with the 40th president. This quiet week of remembrance is a temporary truce.

These are not cheerful thoughts at a time when all are calling to mind the grandest qualities in Ronald Wilson Reagan. But the bitterness of our politics now is a phenomenon admitted by all. People ask whence it arrived. The answer will not be found in George W. Bush's west Texas accent or in his decision to depose Saddam Hussein. Ronald Reagan himself fired the first volleys--and hot lead it was--in his first inaugural speech, in 1981:

"It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment and to demand recognition of the distinction between the powers granted to the Federal Government and those reserved to the States or to the people. All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government."

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News
KEYWORDS: ronaldreagan
Let's finish them off for the Gipper.
1 posted on 06/15/2004 4:15:50 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
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To: SwinneySwitch

Good one!

The Liberals were gnashing their teeth all of last week!!


2 posted on 06/15/2004 4:29:51 PM PDT by Ernest_at_the_Beach (The terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States - and war is what they got!!!!)
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To: SwinneySwitch

Excellent article.

The war Ronald Reagan started looks to be a hundred year war. As some commentators have said recently, if Bush crushes Kerry next November it will NOT teach the liberals a lesson. Instead it will make them even angrier and more extreme than ever. They learned nothing from the 2002 election, and it's doubtful they will learn anything from the 2004 election.

People find it difficult or impossible to admit that the values around which they have built their lives are worthless. It takes a lot before they will change. Indeed most will never change. So new generations will grow up while the old die before an end arrives to this bitter ideological war.


3 posted on 06/15/2004 4:38:26 PM PDT by Cicero (Marcus Tullius)
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To: SwinneySwitch
I got your back, brother.


4 posted on 06/15/2004 5:00:05 PM PDT by Viking2002 (Liberals are social terrorists and seditionists. Treat them as such.........)
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To: Cicero
Well it is not just a case of the values being worthless, the values where not anything else than a self delusion used to mask some of the worst aspects of men and to empower them to act out on those impulses. It is not just that they where wrong, it is that they are altogether different from what they imagined they were. It is so close to the bone, so pervasive in their character and soul that they have nothing left.
5 posted on 06/15/2004 5:03:32 PM PDT by CasearianDaoist
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To: Cicero
They learned nothing from the 2002 election, and it's doubtful they will learn anything from the 2004 election.

And they don't believe the 2000 election. Poor saps are clue free.

6 posted on 06/15/2004 5:07:00 PM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson (Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh/Loves John Kerry so vote him in!)
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To: SwinneySwitch

Reagan didn't fire the first shot. The liberals did that many years before Reagan ever reached the White House. Reagan just went on the offensive and started shooting back. And he also did that well before becoming President.


7 posted on 06/15/2004 5:28:51 PM PDT by Kirkwood
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To: SwinneySwitch
Reagan said that he was ending a way of life for American liberalism.

What we have now is a pus-filled sac that hurts a lot..... Time for a little hydrogen peroxide.

8 posted on 06/15/2004 5:31:32 PM PDT by Tom Bombadil (There are givers and takers. Be a giver and marry one.)
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To: dennisw; Cachelot; Yehuda; Nix 2; veronica; Catspaw; knighthawk; Alouette; Optimist; weikel; ...
If you'd like to be on or off this middle east/political ping list, please FR mail me.
9 posted on 06/15/2004 5:42:41 PM PDT by SJackson (They're not Americans. They're just journalists, Col George Connell, USMC)
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To: Molly Pitcher

10 posted on 06/15/2004 5:43:01 PM PDT by The Raven (<<----Click Screen name to see why I vote the way I do.)
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