I just found this great Reagan speech quote. Why can’t the Republicans understand that it is this vision, and this vision alone, that should separate them from the Democrats??? Why must they consistently put forth compromise slime and good-old-boy socialists as candidates when all they need to win is one man who can say and believe this:
From his first appearance on the national political scene in 1964, he spoke for the values he set forth in his nationally televised speech just before that election:
This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, 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 capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream – the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order – or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”
The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.
via [Cato.org: Remembering Ronald Reagan]
How can a John McCain or George W. Bush exist in a party that embraces Reagan for his intellectual vision? Now is the time for the GOP to discard their collectivist waste, dispose of the pseudo-religious socialist claptrap and return to the party of Reagan’s vision. Many have asked me recently why I say I would have voted for Reagan and yet I’ve not voted for a single Republican yet. Reagan was not a complete success; he compromised on many issues that I thought wrong. However, Reagan never and I repeat never compromised on his principles. And that being said, his principles at their core are mine. If the GOP ever wants to bring the lovers of Liberty, the Republic and the Constitution back into their fold, they need to find another man with Reagan’s principles to be their leader. I could never vote for a man such a Mr. Bush whose belief in Liberty is as contrived as his folksy wisdom. Come on GOP, take this fond remembrance of Reagan as your chance to remake yourself into a real party.
[Listening to: Breathe In - Paloalto - NapsterLive - July 1, 2003 (04:45)]
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