Doug, Doug, Doug. Reagan understood evil. He fought the battle of his own time.

Well, I'll say this. He fought the battle in a gentlemanly way. Yes, pure class. But I think it still commits the error of believing that the Left is proceeding in good faith. But then the Left has gotten much worse since he was President. Maybe I should give him some slack. Still, I admire the hell out of him. Its hard to imagine that such a man was actually President in my lifetime. Imagine that, looking back on the 1980s as if it were some bygone utopia. Compared to the reign of ObaFilth it is.

Doug, Doug, Doug. Reagan understood evil. He fought the battle of his own time.

The change in just 20 years is hard to get your head around. I think it makes more sense when you see that Reagan's performance was the exception to the trend.

It was great to have been around when Reagan, Margaret Thatcher & Roger Douglas were cutting swathes through the political landscapes of their respective countries!

We've all been suffering withdrawal for the last 20 years!

You wrote; [Reagan] succeeded in ways generally unacknowledged

That statement applies beyond budget cutting; it applies to his entire presidency. He was exceptionally successful (exhibit B, his re-election results), so the law of nature is that any minor infraction gets seized upon & amplified by his critics, to 'normalise' him in their own minds.

So it's good to see those numbers about his budget cutting.

But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

Even Reagan understated this. "Some things have changed"? No. The Left has gained control of every major institution in the country and is intent on destroying every facet of pre-1960's America that exists (there is some bad and alot good in there). Reagan was too Pollyanna as are most mainstream O'ists. The Left is intent on creating a Leftist state where non-Leftist ideas are forbidden and criminalized. Soon, non-Leftist advocates will be KILLED. That is the road we are heading down but who the fuck has the balls to say that? Well, organized Objectivism SHOULD SAY IT. But I'm pissing upstream there. And Objectivist bloggers? Hell, "Dr. Diana Hsieh" just posted on how great race relations are today because we have so many black quarterbacks. That fucking woman is the biggest idiot to ever call herself an Objectivist. She's dumber than death.

Reagan was the last of the good men in politics. Our culture can't even support another one. Good men just can't rise; the culture is so damn nihilistic. Yet Reagan did not fully grasp the evil of the Left or the evil of Islam. What we need is for a movement to rise that OPENLY condemns both and seeks to REVERSE the current trend of capitulation to Islam and egalitarianism. NO ONE is up to that job. Not even Objectivism. All it does is push laissez faire economics and bash Conservatives explicitly while it NEVER bashes the Left explicitly. Does anyone other than Lindsay ever notice that? (I actually first read that criticism from him.)

Still Reagan's goodness and his decency are a marvel to watch. I'll take a Reagan speech over the most technically correct but boring O'ist speech any day. We went from that to ObaFilth in 20 years. What will the next 20 years bring? I don't even want to think about it.

What a magnificent farewell speech, delivered so beautifully. My favourite bit was from 9:45 onward when he talks about the Constitution.

I watched the speech via You Tube and there was a lovely comment from someone that read:

My mom asked me what do you want to be when you grow up and I said Ronald Reagan. "Oh, you mean president," she said, and
then I replied "No mom, I said Ronald Reagan." I may have been very young but his morals and values stay alive in my heart.

Bill Clinton was forced into sanity by the triumph of Newt Gingrich and the "Contract with America." Clinton even famously declared, "The era of Big Government is over" (if only!).

For six of Ronnie's eight years, Dem-scum controlled the House. Ronnie *tried* to cut spending, and succeeded in ways generally unacknowledged.

http://www.aei.org/papers/econ...

But of course, it wasn't nearly enough. As he acknowledged in his farewell address. I quote the relevant remarks, and what followed, since the latter is a clear warning of the impending triumph of Airhead America:

I've been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. The deficit is one. I've been talking a great deal about that lately, but tonight isn't for arguments, and I'm going to hold my tongue. But an observation: I've had my share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops; they never saw Reagan's regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made and letter you wrote demanding action. Well, action is still needed. If we're to finish the job, Reagan's regiments will have to become the Bush brigades. Soon he'll be the Chief, and he'll need you every bit as much as I did.

Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years: the resurgence of national pride that I called, "The New Patriotism." This national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.

An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America. We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio. Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.

But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.

So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th anniversary of D-day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who had fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, "we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys of Normandy did." Well, let's help her keep her word. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of that -- of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American thing to do.

Here's the whole speech. Again. Just compare this with Obafilth:

Much is made by the left of Reagan's failure to control the U.S. national debt and I believe he deserves some criticism on this - his tax cuts were not matched by spending cuts (mind you, the president does not act alone and his policies are often compromised by the actions of Congress).

Under 8 years of President Reagan, the national debt rose from $900B to $2,600B. As a proportion of GDP (though the notion of GDP is so flawed as to be essentially meaningless) total debt rose from 33% in 1981 to 51% in 1988.

However, under 4 years of President Obama, national debt rose from $10.0T to $16.0T, from 70% of GDP to 102% of GDP. These figures are scary - national debt is now greater than GDP (and thus much, much greater than the true level of production). Obama's first year in office saw the first decrease in GDP over the previous year since 1949.

Bill Clinton actually looks a lot better than both Reagan and Obama in terms of the debt. During his watch the national debt went from $4.1T to $5.7T, from 64% to 57% of GDP.

That said, Reagan was certainly a breath of fresh air. I will always remember his suggestion during the presidential election campaign in 1980 that the Departments of Education and Energy be abolished. It was great to have been around when Reagan, Margaret Thatcher & Roger Douglas were cutting swathes through the political landscapes of their respective countries!

Looking back down the last 60 years, Reagan now appears on the graph as a brief, shining reversal of the collectivist trend. (Thatcher too). I saw a doco recently that was trying to demystify him and make him look ordinary. This is, of course, because he's the most successful & loved prez of the last 60 years; the most notable & quotable. The most American in its true sense.

Thanks Ed. Happy birthday RR!