Yes, Reagan was great, but it's time to move on

Chicago Sun Times ^ | Feb 11, 2004 | George Will

[PhiKapMom]

In this winter of their discontents, nostalgia for Ronald Reagan has become for many conservatives a substitute for thinking. This mental paralysis -- gratitude decaying into idolatry -- is sterile: Neither the man nor his moment will recur. Conservatives should face the fact that Reaganism cannot define conservatism.

[Reagan Man]

>>>>>Rudolf Giuliani does not deliver us from this evil, he delivers us to it.

Exactly. Good post, Jim.

George Will seems to be saying that Reaganism is dead, and if it isn't, it should be. Sorry George, Reagan's Presidency wasn't all rhetoric, as many Freepers believe it was. Reagan was highly successful in advancing the conservative agenda, winning the Cold War and lifting up the American spirit. Seems some folks have forgotten what America was like from 1964 to 1980.

A lot of FReepers have been playing the victim of conservatism far too long around this forum. Its time that some people reevaluated their politics. Rudy Giuliani is not the answer to the problems facing America, the GOP or conservatism. Will says, dump Reaganism and move on. Move on to what? Giulianism! Sorry, not me.

The Party of Reagan lives on.

[Spiff]

The party better stand for liberty first. Life issues can and should be creatively legislated at the state level, where they should have remained and where they desperately belong. This is the only way to reduce the amount of abortions...if need be through financial incentives that facilitate women to have their children and then give them up for adoption or changing the definition of when a child is technically born (hence creative legislation).

Let's try your statement this way and see if you still agree with it:

The party better stand for liberty first. Life issues Slavery can and should be creatively legislated at the state level, where they should have remained and where they desperately belong. This is the only way to reduce the amount of abortions... slavery if need be through financial incentives that facilitate women to have their children and then give them up for adoption slaveholders to begin releasing their slaves or changing the definition of when a child is technically born slave is technically a human being (hence creative legislation).

When the human race finally rids itself of the evil of abortion, much as it has nearly rid itself of the evil of slavery, people like YOU will be remembered in infamy as one of those who were defending abortion just as those who defended slavery are now held in disgrace. You are on the wrong side of this issue. The souls of the nearly fifty million American children who have been slaughtered since 1973 cry out for justice and point their fingers in accusation at YOU and those like you who are indifferent to the holocaust of abortion.

[LowCountryJoe]

Clean-up on isle 179 & 180, please.

[Delphinium]

Stop being so flippant, you have to know what I am suggesting here.

Actually no I don't know what you are suggesting. That's why I asked and specified. I keep hearing this point of view from the Ron Paul folks and now a Rudyite.

There is only One Judge in these types of matters and it is not the pro-life types that wish to regulate behavior and the free will choices that the Almighty has granted to us.

Are you saying that as free Americans we should live and let live? Anything goes? Anything? How far do we take this degradation without some kind of judgement?

I agree with liberty especially when it comes to private property rights, less government intrusion into private enterprise , pot, (which I never smoke) guns etc.. But isn't Rudy embracing folks who want special rights, instead of just the same ole rigyhts we all have? And isn't infringing the right to keep and bear arms about taking libery away?

Lets say that our government was over taken by those religious zealots you talk about, but you were unarmed?

Life ofcourse is an exremely different issue. And it doesn't matter what others want to believe , a baby is still a baby,(check out the ultrasounds they have now), just as a black person was still human when several states in this nation believed something different. Calling evil good does not make it good. One can't even have liberty without first having the right to live.

That judge you mentioned as the only judge said this :"Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people."

[LowCountryJoe]

And there will be 50 million more if you cannot think of more creative ways to change attitudes about this serious problem with pushing it down throats at the federal level

[Candor7]

The fact is that the democrats were about to have the clture rule changed by the Republican majority which allows minority party filibustering and the change would have required an up or down vote on the floor, the so called nuclear option.

It is this momentum which was circumvented by the gang of 14, and in fact the elected senate Republican majority were not allowed to pursue that very effective strategy by the Gang of 14, The democrats won then by also preventing the various House of Representative Bills, such as the illegal alien legislation from getting to the floor of the Senate. That bill was tabled in pr conference , and the will of the majority of our nation allowed to die an ignoble death on the conference tables.Meanwhile the RINOs involved ran around in circles touting a non -existent new age of bi-partisanship ( sic). These very same type of men, such as McPain and Giuliani now presume to lead the Republican party, whose "moderate" views were foisted by their personal tyranny upon the elected will of the people.

That is what conservative Republicans do not forget, and do you think we will vote for the likes of these men?

Hardly

Its a the socialist democrat press that calls them "frontrunners. To Republican conservatives , they are "a$$runners" who conveniently redefine their records through " creating a new image." Their arrogance offends us, and they will not recieve any support from Republican conservatives.

George Will calls this a sort of Reganite miasma, of retrograde nostalgia, when all Republican conservatives desire is untraduced representation of their principles by principled men and women who will stand up to their political opponents and prevail. The Republican Senate could have prevailed but were cowed by their opponents and their jingoistic media supporters.

There was no biparticanship, as witnessed by the democrat initiated house page sex scandel as the "thankyou" people like Hastert got for preserving the seat of that felon Jefforson from Louisianna, who should now be indicted for being the democrat party's bag man for a third world loan program kick back scheme.

What were senate Republicans thinking, that the Dems would play touchy feely and be all fuzzy wuzzy. Men like Giuliani Romney and McPain are hardly the type of Republican politicians we need in the Senate or in the Presidential office. They do not have the ability to forward the Republican agenda, nor the demonstrated fortitude, or its associated principles.

The future of the Republican party lies with men such as Duncan Hunter, Mike Huckabee, Newt Gingrich and the soon to be exonerated Tom DeLay.These men are political fighters for the Republican cause, and the inheritors of the Reagan tradition. The rest are mere pussies.

[oceanview]

we had 55 senate seats.

McCain, Hagel, the twins from Maine, Graham, DeWine, Voinovich, Chaffee - no way we hold them on a rules change in a straight up or down vote.

It turned out to be a good thing we didn't change the rules. We are the senate minority now.

[EternalVigilance]

And there will be 50 million more if you cannot think of more creative ways to change attitudes about this serious problem with pushing it down throats at the federal level

There will be fifty million more, if God withholds His judgement, and folks like you keep pushing the chimera of unalienable rights being a states' right issue. You're preaching the same phony "gospel" as Rudy...one that is designed, whether you realize it or not, only to preserve the blood-soaked status quo.

[LexBaird]

alito would not have, there would not have been 60 votes for cloture, and there would not have been 51 votes for a rules change. so he would have not been confirmed.

There would have been cloture if the Rep leadership (read Frist) had the testicular fortitude to make it a real filibuster. If Sheets and Teddy had been forced to pee in a bottle and sit up a few nights, the U.S. public might have woken up to the circus, and started to question the obstructionists as to what it all was really about. At that point, it would have been time to contrast what Alito was really like, as opposed to the demonization. The average oblivious person might have come to find out about "memogate" and how far the Dem leadership is beholden to NARAL and company. It started to kill them when Roberts showed how reasonable and mainstream he was, and they dropped opposition.

[Jim Robinson]

And Libertarians need to learn that if you have no life, you have no liberty.

Roe vs Wade stripped the abortion issue out of the hands of the state legislatures and even out of the hands of the congress. Roe vs Wade needs to be overturned and the overstepping liberal activist court needs to be slapped down so these matters can be decided at the state level as originally intended. This will never happen under a socially liberal president.

[Delphinium]

Over here.

[OCCASparky]

We forget what Reagan stood for, we can forget what conservatism stands for, and we can forget what this country once stood for as we slide inevitably into a socialist state.

No, Mister Will--I will NOT forget Ronald Reagan.

[OMalley]

hey! very intersting thread:)

[LexBaird]

Pro-lifers vehemently oppose this rational choice on what ground, I'll never know. There is only One Judge in these types of matters and it is not the pro-life types that wish to regulate behavior and the free will choices that the Almighty has granted to us.

Why? Because in places where this has been tried and normalized, people are finding out that the One Judge you are referring to is being superseded by human judges making the decision for them. Once you normalize the idea that some lives "are not worth living", you open the door for others to decide which ones fall into that category, whether they would choose it or not. Where is free will when it is the deformed being euthanized, and then the mentally retarded, and then the decrepit, and then the inconvenient 3 year olds, and then the gypsies, Jews, homosexuals, and whoever else has a life not worth living?

This isn't theory - it is happening in Europe, not for the first time either, and you can see exactly the same thing has happened here, once "It's a woman's body, so it's the woman's choice" became normalized enough for people to discount the other body involved. The death culture advocates are following the template of Roe exactly.

Also because in many instances it isn't a case of suicide, it's a case of death by doctor. "Assisted suicide" is another one of those phrases of art that are trying to be normalized, but are oxymoronic lies. The patient isn't self killing; the doctor is offing them. I, for one, don't feel that those supposedly dedicated to preserving life should be perverted into the licensed takers of life. It soils the professional ethics, and leaves a huge gap for abuse by death-obsessed M.D. psychos like Kevorkian.

[Delphinium]

it's a case of death by doctor.

Or a relative wanting to get rid of them.

[Delphinium]

FR seems slow tonight. There is some pretty interesting posts on this thread. It is just hard to understand some people way of thinking.

[California Patriot]

Reagan was a truly great man and a truly great president. Will's criticisms of him here are mostly off-base. However, Will is completely right that neither the man nor the historical moment will be repeated. We need to think about our situation now, and how to deal with it. Reagan is certainly an inspiration, and in a few limited respects he can be a model. But his memory is not, nor would he wish it to be, a substitute for hard thinking in the HERE AND NOW.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

...if we abandon our Judeo-Christian moral values then what are we left with? What value system produces the culture of death and decadence, atheism, abortion, gay marriage, the harvesting of embryonic stem cells, human cloning, eugenics, the erosion and destruction of moral society and of our cherished God-given unalienable rights? And what value system fights against such evil?"

---

EXACTLY.

"We shall have no truce or parley with you, or the grisly gang who work your wicked will. You do your worst, and we will do our best....We do not expect to hit without being hit back, and we intend with every week that passes to hit harder. Prepare yourselves then, my friends and comrades, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however sombre the road, however grievous the cost, because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind." - Winston Churchill, 1941

Never give in. Never give in. Never...except to convictions of honour and good sense. -- Winston Churchill

There is no neutral ground in the universe--every square inch, every split second, is claimed by God and counterclaimed by Satan. -- C.S. Lewis

[Liz]

Can't understand why Rudy's supporters get so hyper from the treatment Rudolfo is receiving from pro-lifers.

Pro-lifers are merely treating Rudy EXACTLY the way Rudy himself treats the unborn.........as a disposable nuisance

Abortion is savagery beyond imagination.

Psychiatrists with principles should come forward to explain the deep-rooted psychoses of people like Rudy who get a sense of personal satisfaction unleashing abortionists with knives and suction machines on helpless unborn babies, and the threat people like Rudy pose to the rest of us.

Put in a position of power, Rudy's obsession with legalized killing may not stop with the unborn. Those of us that espouse a reverence for human life shudder at the thought of this disturbed individual, Rudy Giuliani, being unleashed on America.

[LowCountryJoe]

Do you have a solution? Do you have the magic legislative formula that convinces the mothers of unborn children to love their yet-to-be-born children and not maliciously abuse them? You do not or you would have posted it in your reply. While it is true that you are on the correct side of this issue, your approach, if you had one, woudn't likely be well received. It is far better to gain smaller victories if it means less death to the innocent in both the short and long runs.