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"May God bless and keep the greatest President in my lifetime! Without a doubt, we can thank President Reagan that this nation isn't now a part of the Soviet empire."

President Reagan made his appearance on the political stage on October 27, 1964. I feel privileged to have witnessed it at the time. The Great Society was still a pipe-dream on the drawing board of wishful thinking instead of the nightmare that threatens to fulfill Plutarch's warning, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits." Polling data was showing that Barry Goldwater was going to lose the election to Lyndon Johnson by a wide margin. Goldwater paid for TV network time for a nationwide broadcast as part of a last ditch effort to save the election. Ronald Reagan wrote and delivered the speech.

A Time for Choosing is the most important political speech since the Gettysburg Address. Although Goldwater was actually the candidate, you would not recognize it from the speech. In that speech, President Reagan picked up the torch that carries the sacred fire of liberty with these words, "We have come to a time for choosing; we will preserve for our children this the last best hope for man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.....history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening."America was at a cross roads, one path led to another Dark Ages and the other road to freedom.

President Reagan went on to identify two enemies that must be defeated in order for America to remain on the path to freedom. The first enemy of freedom that he identified was our own too large and still growing government:

"I have spent most of my life as a Democrat. I recently have seen fit to follow another course...No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income. Today, 37 cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector's share, and yet our government continues to spend 17 million dollars a day more than the government takes in. We haven't balanced our budget 28 out of the last 34 years. We've raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world...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."

It has been just over 40 years since President Reagan picked up the torch that bears the sacred fire of freedom. Americans now spend more to support their government, than all their other living expenses including medical care, transportation, food, clothing, and shelter combined. That "17 million dollars a day" of which President Reagan complained, has now mushroomed into a billion dollars a day. Who among you has considered the possibility that our government is threatening to finally and forever escape its Constitutional restraints allowing it to become a government of the people instead of the republic that was a government for the people?

After he became President, and without firing a single shot, Ronald Reagan single handedly defeated the second enemy of freedom that he had identified on that memorable night in 1964. The socialistic Soviet Empire is now on the ash-heap of history as President Reagan had promised. Being honest and looking in the mirror, has our own government become its socialistic replacement? History is unambiguous; the government of any nation poses the greatest threat to its own people. Is ours any different? Have we drifted so far from our Constitutional roots that instead of being the defender of our freedoms as the Founders intended, government has become the instrument that plans our lives around the "common good" instead of We as individuals deciding what is in our own best interests and in the best interests of our own families?

There was a time when history repeated because people had less opportunity to know the mistakes of the past, let alone learn from them. If history repeats again, it will either be because We did not exercise our option to choose or We are going to make the wrong choice. History is unambiguous, and just as Plutarch warned, all demcracies end in bankruptcy or hyperinflation whenever the people learn to vote themselves benefits.

I would suggest to each and every American that the United States is still standing at that cross roads that President Reagan identified in 1964, but that less than a decade from now, existing law is going to take away our remaining choices. Today, in 2006, there is still time to choose freedom. We still have the power to choose because President Reagan succeeded in preserving your power to make the right choice, but only for a period of time. The United States made the wrong turn in that fateful 1964 election, leaving what is now roughly a decade in which we can correct our mistake.

Every February 6, even from the grave, President Reagan is still reaching out to us and asking us to choose. The ability to choose is the essence of freedom. "We have come to a time for choosing; we will preserve for our children this the last best hope for man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness." Like the sand in an hour glass, the last grains of our freedom are running out. When the boomers stop paying taxes and demand their "benefits", the Time for Choosing will have run out.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Mr President.

you were/ARE the BEST!

free dixie,sw

In less than hour Rush Limbaugh is going to be on the air paying tribute to President Reagan. Click here to send the Tribute that President Reagan deserves and to ensure the Legacy he earned.

Thanks for the ping. I keep thinking what would have happened to America if RR was not elected or did not survive the assassination attempt.

A very bleak future...

Make one think that there is someone watching over us.

BTTT

Thanks for the ping, HP. Your description of the legacy of Ronald Reagan is among the most moving I have read here. I attempted to excerpt parts of it for comment, but was unable to do so. Every word is as powerful and meaningful as the rest. Bless you for so beautifully describing the hope he inspired in us when we were searching for a leader of character.

And now, a mere seventeen years after he left the White House, that title, ‘a leader of character’, seems, once again, to have become dangerously oxymoronic. We have returned to the pre-Reagan era of leadership-by-compromise, and the evils with whom we are compromising are far more deadly, and less well-confined, than those we faced in the eighties.

Below is a tribute that I have included in my personal profile here. Thank you for the opportunity to post it again. (No response necessary. Will be off-line for a while.)

It was the ‘Rendezvous With Destiny’ speech that introduced me to Ronald Reagan. My Dad, more than anyone else I have ever known, embodied the noble qualities that defined ‘the greatest generation’ – and, from the time my sisters and I were very young, he steadfastly attempted (with varying degrees of success :) to instill in the four of us a sense of civic responsibility and involvement. To that end, he urged us to read and listen to a certain amount of news and commentary (which, in those more honest days, was clearly labeled ‘editorial’). My Dad was a staunch Goldwater supporter and he suggested that I watch the Reagan speech on that fateful autumn evening in 1964. At that time, I wasn’t terribly impressed with Barry Goldwater (although I became significantly more so later on), and I had never heard of Ronald Reagan, other than in echoes of conversations when people would occasionally discuss movies, etc.

I fell in love the evening of October 27, 1964 and haven’t been the same since.

Sixteen years later, during Reagan’s first presidential campaign, my husband and I and our two very young children went to Millersville University to hear him speak. His words were electrifying. His faith, wisdom, decency, honesty, and love of this country were awe-inspiring … and his sincere, unabashed passion literally filled the auditorium, wall to wall, floor to ceiling. Afterwards I was fortunate enough to make my way up to the stage and shake his hand. I am not, and never have been, starry-eyed about any public figure, so it was not the reaction of a ‘groupie’ when I felt an unmistakable strength and warmth run through me as his hand gripped mine. And the indescribably kind, knowing, optimistic twinkle in his eye is something I have never witnessed in the eyes of anyone else, before or since. Not ever.

My tribute to …

America's Greatest President

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He enunciated his words deliberately, so that the last four words, each a monosyllable, sound like hammer blows:

'Mr. Gorbachev! Tear down this wall!' ... 12 June, 1987

incomparable leadership embodied in faith, integrity, dignity, decency, character, intelligence, compassion and love of country in the Oval Office
(1981-1989)

There is no question that we have failed to live up to the dreams of the founding fathers many times and in many places. Sometimes we do better than others. But all in all, the one thing we must be on guard against is thinking that because of this, the system has failed. The system has not failed. Some human beings have failed the system ... 21 June, 1973

The work of volunteer groups throughout our country represents the very heart and soul of America. They have helped make this the most compassionate, generous, and humane society that ever existed on the face of this earth ... 16 October, 1973

We have every right to dream heroic dreams. Those who say that we're in a time when there are no heroes, they just don't know where to look ... 20 January, 1981

...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever ... 20 January, 1981

The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology ... 18 May, 1984

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On The Eve Of The 2000 Republican Convention, An Open Letter To Ronald Reagan

by joanie-f

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America Says A Grateful Goodbye, In Stirring Music and Moving Images ...
Photographs (Souza), 'Mansions of the Lord' (Smith/Wallace)

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11 June, 2004:

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others,
faithfully administering God’s grace in its various forms … 1 Peter 4:10

The Lord graced and blessed us with your presence during the time when we, and the world, needed you most. He has declared an end to your pain and suffering and now envelopes you in His own loving arms. Your beloved Nancy, your family, and your countrymen, who know that we will never again be the same without your precious presence, must also seek His strength and comfort, for the void that is left by your passing can never be filled.

May we prove to have been deserving of your leadership, by never relinquishing those convictions that you held sacred – the ultimate importance of, and reliance on, Divine direction, and the sanctity of human life, liberty and dignity. May we never abandon the exquisite example you have set for us. Through it, your spirit must remain forever alive in America, and your legacy must prevail, so long as humanity places value on righteousness.

A reluctant and tear-filled good bye, Ronald Reagan.

Precious Lord, take my hand.
Lead me on, help me stand.
I am tired, I am weak, I am worn.
Through the storm, through the night,
Lead me on to the light.
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.

When my way grows drear,
Precious Lord, linger near –
When my life is almost gone.
Hear my cry, hear my call,
Hold my hand, lest I fall.
Take my hand, precious Lord,
Lead me home.

Viewing the Caisson, Bidding Farewell

... and the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father ... Mat 13:43

/salute to the best president and a great man.

A fitting and eloquent tribute to a great man. No one could ever say of Ronald Reagan he wasn't in the arena; daring greatly. Such a shame his vision for America was left in the hands of, if not less capable, less inspired men. Or is it because the inner strength that seemed to drive Ronald Reagan to greatness is no longer an acceptable commodity in our "enlightened" society where mediocrity is the norm?

RR may have been the personification of Teddy Roosevelt's words:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to he man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew niether victory nor defeat.

I wonder what will be written of our generation?

FGS

Thanks for ping HP to an excellent post.