Ronald Reagan Anniversary and Legacy

A wise and frugal government … shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. Thomas Jefferson

Tomorrow, February 6^th, is Ronald Wilson Reagan’s birth day anniversary, but that isn’t as important as to what legacy he left behind – guided wisdom for America, that he loved so much, as much as the American people, that Americans should follow in order to reform our nation and its government back to the path of productivity, national pride, unity and the Jeffersonian republic. This reformation applies to all – citizens, elected officials and the way we think about values. It applies to Republicans just as much as Democrats who have drifted away from what made this country great. 

The RNC has been so disappointed in their Republican membership they have devised a method to weed out the RINOs (Republican In Name Only), according to Mark Alexander:

At the most recent Republican National Committee confab, some members proposed a "Unity Principle for Support of Candidates" resolution, which identified 10 conservative principles, at least eight of which Republican candidates must support in order to receive RNC funding. The measure failed, perhaps because more than a few of the current crop of politicos who call themselves "Republican" could not pass muster. … Of course, as Leftists are prone to do, they are contorting the record so it will comport with their hypothesis, or as Reagan said famously, "The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

Ronald Reagan dealt with the frustration of a frenzied media in his White House press conferences and usually smiled when he returned with a catchy quip in return for their obnoxiousness. Even liberals respected him. He was a likeable person, despite some making fun of his homespun nature. He understood Democrats, once being one himself, and when asked why he left the party of FDR, he replied:

I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party left me.

He would not stand by an organization, an entity that didn’t abide by the First Principles, as Mark Alexander wrote:

What is clear about the Reagan record is that he both campaigned and governed on our First Principles, Constitutional Rule of Law and the basic tenets of Essential Liberty. … Reagan resurrected supply-side economics -- the real-world-tested fiscal policy that reductions in tax rates and government spending will invigorate the private sector economy, elevate GDP, resulting, ironically, in additional tax revenues even at the lower rates of taxation. But the principle works best only if reduced tax rates are accompanied by comparable reductions in government spending. Democrats refused to cut spending, all while belittling Reagan's efforts as "trickle-down economics." However, supply-side economics is so powerful that even though Democrat-controlled House budgets led to record deficits, Reagan's economic policies resulted in the largest peacetime economic surge in American history. This, of course, is in stark contrast to the "trickle-up poverty" of the current administration's past, present and proposed "economic recovery" plans. Typical of great statesmen, Ronald Reagan took no credit for our nation's economic recovery under his tenure. He was called "The Great Communicator" because of his ability to remind us of our nation's values, its character, its soul and its confidence, a far cry from the incessant apologizing and the political chicanery that characterize the Obama presidency. "I wasn't a great communicator," President Reagan said in his farewell address, "but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries." …

In 1977, Reagan outlined a plan for The New Republican Party:

The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and what we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations -- found through the often bitter testing of pain, or sacrifice and sorrow. … We, the members of the New Republican Party, believe that the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation should be at the heart of any legislative or political program presented to the American people. … Families must continue to be the foundation of our nation. Families -- not government programs -- are the best way to make sure our children are properly nurtured, our elderly are cared for, our cultural and spiritual heritages are perpetuated, our laws are observed and our values are preserved. ... We fear the government may be powerful enough to destroy our families; we know that it is not powerful enough to replace them. … Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business ... frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite. … Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. ... And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert and reapply America's spiritual heritage to our national affairs. Then with God's help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us. 

In his 1981 inaugural address, President Reagan told the nation:

The economic ills we suffer ... will not go away in days, weeks, or months, but they will go away. They will go away because we, as Americans, have the capacity now, as we have had in the past, to do whatever needs to be done to preserve this last and greatest bastion of freedom. In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

In 1992 Mr. Reagan addressed the Republican convention for the last time:

And whatever else history may say about me when I'm gone, I hope it will record that I appealed to your best hopes, not your worst fears, to your confidence rather than your doubts. My dream is that you will travel the road ahead with liberty's lamp guiding your steps and opportunity's arm steadying your way. My fondest hope for each one of you -- and especially for young people -- is that you will love your country, not for her power or wealth, but for her selflessness and her idealism. May each of you have the heart to conceive, the understanding to direct, and the hand to execute works that will make the world a little better for your having been here. May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance, and never lose your natural, God-given optimism. And finally, my fellow Americans, may every dawn be a great new beginning for America and every evening bring us closer to that shining city upon a hill.

Like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and other founders that provided the foundation of a democratic republic, Ronald Wilson Reagan provided the template for the way back to honor, integrity and the true America way. And it is not racist or inhumane to insist that immigrants become a part of that foundation of principles and the template for a better America, even to the point of insisting on one major language, English; for in our nation’s history we have welcomed the downtrodden, those in despair and those escaping tyranny with only the insistence that they become Americans – not create cultural geographical miniatures of the country they left – but as Americans.

Once upon a time in America, people came over in ships, disembarked on our shores with little formality. Then there was the need for order and the safety of American citizens, so they developed immigration laws, allowing only an annual quota of immigrants, health and background screening – all developed from common sense security. If there is no employment for the droves of immigrants coming in, how is it their life would be better? It breeds malcontent and poverty that results in higher crime rates and other problems.

Illegal aliens, immigrants who arrive without permission, are lawbreakers from the start. Then, in order to obtain employment and live here, they obtain fraudulent identities and stolen identities, which increase their criminal acts. They settle in areas where their culture has been established, but their quest for peace ends, for the street gangs are recruiting them in droves because they offer them money they couldn’t make legally or threaten them and their families if they don’t join. They become a problem to our nation instead of an asset.

Illegal aliens receive no health examination, so they can easily bring diseases to America that could lead to epidemics.

Illegal aliens receive no background check, so criminals enter and are added to those already in the ghettos of America. They become a cancer threatening the civil peace and the safety of American citizens – both those who are American by birth right and those who have arrived here following the rules of immigration to proudly call themselves American.

To be against illegal aliens is not racism – it is common sense. They are taking jobs from legal immigrants and American citizens. They are taking advantage of the good nature of Americans and they stain their ethnic comrades who have assimilated and become Americans. Among those who came here to live a better life are those who would do harm to Americans and America, comprising of those that are called the Fifth Column. They have no desire to assimilate, but don't mind reaping the rewards of living in the United States.

An American is not a single ethnic people; it is people originating from all over the world to unite under principles, laws and the rights and liberties of a free people, not to be usurped by those elected by the people. It is what makes America unique. A people and their nation can only prosper with unity; racism, ethnic superiority ideology does not belong in America, indeed not anywhere. Knowledge is power, and it is the only element that can make a person or a people superior. Knowledge is for all, just as equalities in law and society.

But never be deceived about the promise or vision of a Utopia – there can be no such thing. There will be always issues, but the outcome is determined by common sense and applications applied that our founders so wisely created. Trust no one who believes or wants you to believe that Utopia can be obtained and/or obtained through supplication; for they are the mark of they tyrant.

Patrick Henry made a famous speech about life, liberty and death; but he also stated:

It is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth – and listen to the song of that Syren, till she transforms us into beasts. … Are we disposed to be the number of those, who having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not?

Mark Alexander wrote in The Time Has Come …

A year ago, a majority of our countrymen were hoodwinked into electing a charlatan with dubious credentials to the highest constitutional office in the land. Since then, millions of Americans who had become complacent about the Leftist threat to our liberty have begun to realize that our Constitution is now suffering an unprecedented assault. There were those of us who realized in 2004 -- back when Teddy Kennedy and John Kerry let him take center stage at the Democrat National Convention -- that Barack Hussein Obama was a Marxist. Nonetheless, too many of our countrymen were lulled into believing that no leftist politico with such abhorrent extra-constitutional views on the role of government could rise to be president of the United States. The awakening that has occurred since November of '08 is like nothing I have witnessed since the first election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980. After the economic and foreign policy disasters created by the Carter administration, Americans were stirred to action. Yes, the election of Bill Clinton in 1992 resulted in a conservative takeover of the House two years later, but Clinton was far more moderate than Obama, and his election didn't inspire millions of Americans to arm themselves for the first time. … If Barack Obama has given us one thing of value, it is the opportunity to clearly discern between Left and Right, between rule of men and Rule of Law. He is the quintessential socialist, and his domestic and foreign policies present a contrast between tyranny and liberty that has rarely been so apparent. Many who have been hitherto reluctant to rise on behalf of liberty or have been too comfortable to be concerned by such conflict, are now making an ever-louder stand. … The once noble Democrat Party is now led by those who have turned the wisdom of their iconic leaders upside down. …  

"My fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." --John F. Kennedy, Inaugural Address, 1961

"I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." --Martin Luther King, Address from the Lincoln Memorial, 1963 …

Today, Democrat Party Leftists deride the notion of individual rights. Instead, they advocate the supplanting of individual liberty with statism. They promote the notion of a living constitution rather than the authentic Constitution our Founders established. They despise free enterprise and advocate socialist redistribution of wealth, the ultimate goal of which is to render all people equally poor and dependent upon the state. They loathe our military and our national sovereignty, and they propose to replace it with treaties that establish supranational governmental legal and policing authorities. They detest traditional American values, and they support all manner of behavior resulting in social entropy. Being debated right now is whether an additional 17 percent of the U.S. economy is going to be nationalized under ObamaCare, and whether the rest of the economy is going to be shackled by cap-and-trade taxes in addition to a plethora of other job-eliminating taxes on private sector employers. … Today, more and more Americans are returning to the core principles upon which our nation was founded, which made it the freest and most productive in history. There is a renewed commitment to support and defend Essential Liberty.

Benjamin Franklin:

They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

George Washington, our first commanding general and first president, knew that the principles that founding nation would be flexible to the march of time and progress:

We should never despair, our Situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new Exertions and proportion our Efforts to the exigency of the times.

The opportunity is there, but it will take effort, consistency and voters being responsible. Elected congressional members are provided an oath upon taking office, specified in the US Constitution, Article VI, and clause 3:

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution …

When I enlisted in the US Army, I, like others – commissioned and enlisted military personnel, as are required today, took an oath to:

solemnly swear, that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same...

Violations of this oath and other infractions are referred to the courts-martial that fall under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Politicians who pretend to be statesmen (stateswomen) who violate laws, the US Constitution, are punished by reelection. What’s wrong with that picture? Congressional members, Supreme Court Justices and the President of the United States are NOT above the law that they are sworn to uphold and protect.

Justice Joseph Story wrote concerning the Presidential Oath of Office:

The duty imposed upon him to take care, that the laws be faithfully executed, follows out the strong injunctions of his oath of office, that he will ‘preserve, protect, and defend the constitution.’

Last year, Mark Alexander wrote an excellent tribute to Ronald Reagan, North Star of the Conservative Revolution …

On this anniversary of President Ronald Wilson Reagan's birthday, we remember him for his extraordinary leadership, wit and wisdom -- and for living the quintessential success story. … The day before George H.W. Bush was elected; Reagan reassured those of us who suspected Bush would fumble the ball: "[Though] my name isn't on your ballot tomorrow, something more important is: a principle, a legacy. No, this is not the end of an era; it's a time to refresh and strengthen the new beginning we started eight years ago. ... I hope that someday your children and grandchildren will tell of the time that a certain president came to town at the end of a long journey and asked their parents and grandparents to join him in setting America on the course to the new millennium, and that a century of peace, prosperity, opportunity and hope had followed." Unfortunately, Bush did fumble the ball right into Bill Clinton's hands, and he ran it all the way for a touchdown. … Too many Republicans have ventured down the path of destruction laid by Democrats -- Democrats who long ago abandoned our Founders' legacy of freedom and liberty. In doing so, they have succumbed to the allure of unmitigated power and self-aggrandizement. … Increasingly, wayward Republicans, now relegated to the back of the bus, are taking a hard look at where they are and how they got there. With the help of those resolute conservatives who have remained steadfast in their allegiance and loyalty to their oaths, there is a resurgence in the ranks of House and Senate members who are refocusing on the North Star of the Republican Party: Ronald Reagan. … Thank you, President Reagan, and may all Patriots heed your warning: "As government expands, liberty contracts." God bless you, sir.

I mentioned unity as Americans and importance of dissolving racism. I would like to present you an article by a blogger at Newsvine who calls himself Jazzman entitled: Why I am an African-American Conservative …

I guess I don't have to explain why I'm black. This is not about the biological origin of my color, but about the origin of my political ideology, which many people, both online and off, black and white, seem to have an issue with. Although in most cases, when I'm questioned as to why I'm a Conservative, it's questioned because of my skin color, as if African Americans are not allowed to hold conservative views, have no right to support any political party except the Democrats, or have a political viewpoint counter to that of the radical left. … Of course my Christian belief has a lot to do with my conservatism. … Our society now says homosexuality is acceptable and normal. The Bible says it isn't, so I reject and oppose that view. … Many of our so called, "black leaders", and "role models", in politics, entertainment, and sports who exploit that culture for their personal gain, at the expense of lives and souls lost and destroyed, I find despicable. I reject the culture and them, and don't hesitate to openly say so. … I oppose Barack Obama with a passion not because I have any personal hatred of him (as I've also been accused of ). While I don't believe Obama is the Anti-Christ (incarnate), I do believe his radical leftist ideology is anti-Christ in nature and origin, and that I have an obligation to speak out against it, even though it puts me at political and emotional odds with the great majority of the black community, and even some members of my own family. …

What makes Mr. Jazzman an American patriot? It isn’t his race or even his religion, its principals, his unity and knowledge through education – it’s his belief in the principals of the US Constitution, his insistence that our government abide by the rule of law and the Bill of Rights.

Ronald Reagan had something to say in 1964 on behalf of Barry Goldwater about those who Mr. Jazzman refers to …

Well, now, if government planning and welfare had the answer, and they’ve had almost 30 years of it, shouldn’t we expect government to read the score to us once in a while? Shouldn’t they be telling us about the decline each year in the number of people needing help?

Newt Gingrich and Craig Shirley at Politico:

…Power in Washington for conservatives must be based on returning power from Washington to the American people.  

Suggested Reading:

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan Presidential Library

Reagan 2020

American President: Ronald Wilson Reagan … in-depth essays, Miller Center

What Obama Still Can Learn From Ronald Reagan … Lincoln Mitchell, Huffington Post

Our Sacred Honor - To Support and Defend ...Patriot Post, Mark Alexander

Proposed RNC 'Unity Principle for Support of Candidates' Resolution ... Patriot Post

America on Ronald Reagan's Birthday ... American Thinker