Applying the Wisdom of Ronald Reagan in Today's Political Landscape

Many people today know Ronald Reagan as an actor, who then went on to become Governor of California, and then the 40th President of the United States. He was a man who knew what he believed and actually stood up for those principles. He did not sell out his principles in order to gain political favor. He led us out of a brutal recession. He brought back a faith and trust in the American way of life at the height of the Cold War. He believed in Americans and America, even when they did not necessarily believe in themselves.

In the past couple of years, I have received Ronald Reagan calendars from the Reagan Ranch. These calendars are full of pictures of Ronald Reagan, both at work and at his ranch. They contain interesting factual nuggets. But more than anything else in this calendar, they contain many quotes from his speeches and his writings.

Today, politicians need speechwriters to come up with many of the pithy things that they say. This was not true with Reagan. While he did have speechwriters, many of these quotes belong to Reagan himself.

In reading these quotes, it is easy to see that Ronald Reagan believed that the problems that Americans face today are solvable. He believed that government intervention was not the way to solve these problems. Rather, Americans can solve these problems when the government steps out of the way, when we have a faith in God to get us through our trials, when we are free to help others in time of need.

• He believed in a limited government; not an oppressive, overreaching government.
• He believed in a government of, by, and for the people; not in a government in spite of the people.
• He believed that people should have a freedom to worship as they please; not a freedom from worship and all things spiritual.
• He believed that the founding fathers put together a document that could withstand the test of time; not a document that changes over time to whatever we want it to say.

As I read through these quotes, I am amazed at the things he believed and the way he governed. I marvel at a politician who governed as he said he would, something we do not really have today. Then I wonder, if we applied his wisdom to the way we are governed today (or allow ourselves to be governed), then how much better off would we be as a country?

I wish to share a few of these quotes in this post. I will occasionally share more of them as time goes on. But please take note of the things he says and how we could apply them to government today.

1. "You can't be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy." Ronald Reagan - 1988
2. "Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will product less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates and the people produced more than ever before." Ronald Reagan - 1989
3. "We have long since discovered that nothing lasts longer than a temporary government program." Ronald Reagan - 1992
4. "All of us should remember that the federal government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files, and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control." Ronald Reagan - 1981

There are so many more quotes that I could post here, but I think you get the main idea. Reagan believed that government was not here to fix everyone's problem, to provide for everyone, to be a nanny to us.

Ponder these "Reagan-isms". Read them over and over again. Try to understand that the way that the government is leading us today is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of Reagan. Then ask yourself "Why?" What is it that today's government officials (in both parties) do not understand about the ideas and principles that Reagan espoused and lived by? Why can't they see that, under Reagan, this country prospered? Why can't they see that when you get government out of the way, Americans can prosper and live in the freedom that the founding fathers envisioned?

Why do today's elected government officials feel that we cannot make our own decisions on anything? Why do they feel that we need the government to hold us by our hands every day of our life? Why do they feel that we are not smart enough to make good decisions?

Remember, we have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Why do we vote for these knuckleheads who do not believe this? Why do we vote for people who do not care about the people they represent? Mid-term elections are coming up next year. It is about time we vote for people who represent us and the freedom we cherish. We do not need to elect people who represent government bureaucracy. Let's take our country back.

Obama vs. Reagan

As we have finally reached Inauguration Day 2009, I look at the things that President Obama has proposed over the campaign and in these weeks leading up to the inauguration. Given a slowing economy and rising unemployment, he has proposed new government programs to give people jobs. He has proposed tax cuts and rebates for people who already do not carry a tax burden. He would like for us, as Americans, to rely on the government to fix the problems we face. Apparently, he thinks that we, as individuals, are capable of righting the ship, of turning things around, of returning America to the place of prominence that we have been for such a long time. We should rely on inept government bureaucratic agencies to pull us out of a short-term economic slide. To President Obama, government is the solution.

I would like to compare this to the Inaugural address given by President Ronald Reagan at his first inauguration in January, 1981. I heard this speech on C-Span yesterday. I was impressed by his down to earth approach. He was going to be the leader of the free world. He was taking over a country that was facing high unemployment and double-digit inflation. There was punitive taxation on those who were successful. It was definitely a worse economic environment than what we face today. There were hostages in Iran. There was an ongoing Cold War with the Soviet Union. There was a declining sense of American exceptionalism. Yet Reagan new the answer was in the American people, not the government, to solve these problems.

While I encourage you to read the full text of the speech, I would like for you to see some excerpts of this wonderful speech.

"...government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else?"

"We hear much of special interest groups. Well, our concern must be for a special interest group that has been too long neglected. It knows no sectional boundaries or ethnic and racial divisions, and it crosses political party lines...They are, in short, "we the people," this breed called Americans."

"We are a nation that has a government--not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth. Our government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed."

"...it's not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work--work with us, not over us; to stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it."

"If we look to the answer as to why for so many years we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on earth, it was because here in this land we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on earth."

"It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams...I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing."

"As for the enemies of freedom, those who are potential adversaries, they will be reminded that peace is the highest aspiration of the American people. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it; we will not surrender for it, now or ever. Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act. We will maintain sufficient strength to prevail if need be, knowing that if we do so we have the best chance of never having to use that strength. Above all, we must realize that no arsenal or no weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

"The crisis we are facing today...does require, however, our best effort and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together with God's help we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us. And after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans."

I am sure we will not here this from our new President.