New Common Sense: Applying First Principles to the Issues of Today
Beware of Liberals Waxing Reaganesque
The buzz word to praise Barack Obama’s second State of the Union address is “Reaganesque.” Time magazine gushed that Obama’s emphasis on innovation, nod to American Exceptionalism, and deft use of storytelling places him “squarely — with Reagan — on the side of sunshine and enterprise.” As one conservative commentator remarked, “ever so slowly, liberals are attempting a subtle revisionism” of our 40th president. Though Reagan was portrayed as a simpleton B-movie actor (lacking compassion for the little man or good sense about policy) while president, liberals now reinterpret his legacy in order to bludgeon conservatives with it.
What defines Ronald Reagan?
Reagan’s greatest accomplishments were undoubtedly in foreign policy. He demonstrated great courage in challenging and defeating the Soviet Union. Reagan assisted pro-freedom anti-communist forces in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and Cambodia. Some estimate that the cash-strapped Soviets spent $8 billion a year on counterinsurgency operations against U.S.-backed guerrillas. The accelerating Soviet losses in Afghanistan demoralized the Kremlin and the Red Army, hastening the collapse of the Soviet empire. There was vehement opposition to his Strategic Defense Initiative (even within his administration), but Reagan continued to push SDI and to persuade the Soviets to stop waging a Cold War they could not win.
At home, liberal intellectuals lauded the economic accomplishments of the Soviet Union. Reagan was not so easily seduced. In late 1981 and all of 1982, when his tax cuts had not yet kicked in and the U.S. economy still lagged, President Reagan reassured his worried aides and counseled them to stay the course. He had faith in the American people who, if they could be “liberated from the restraints imposed on them by government,” would pull “the country out of its tailspin.” Reagan told the British Parliament that a “global campaign for freedom” would prevail over the forces of tyranny and that “the Soviet Union itself is not immune to this reality.” By the end of the decade, as he predicted, Marxism-Leninism was dumped on the ash heap of history. America, though, experienced the longest peacetime economic expansion in U.S. history, with 17 million new jobs created during the Reagan years.
Reagan was indeed a gifted politician. He knew when to bend a little (in order to get what he wanted later on) and when to stand firm. In either case, his principles guided his actions. Ronald Reagan’s principles were rooted in two documents—the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. From his very first national speech supporting Barry Goldwater’s presidential bid in October 1964 to his farewell address to the nation in January 1989, Reagan turned again and again to the wisdom of the Founders. Under Reagan's leadership, his Attorney General Edwin Meese III reopened a fundamental debate about the meaning of the Constitution that liberals had thought to be settled long ago. An open discussion of the Constitution’s meaning was essential, because “Reagan understood that many of our problems descended from the decay of the Constitution's restraints on the centralization of power in Washington.”
Considering that Reagan’s policies were grounded in the principles and documents of the American founding, it is more than passing strange to watch liberals twist Reagan’s legacy and declare Barack Obama heir to this new liberalized version of Reagan. Reagan’s understanding of America remained anchored in our country's core documents. Obama’s vision of America requires us to shed our allegiance to these documents and build a new progressive foundation for America. Reagan unabashedly embraced American exceptionalism, declaring the Soviet Union to be an Evil Empire. Obama begrudgingly tips his hat towards American exceptionalism, spending his time abroad groveling before foreign dignitaries and apologizing for America’s sins. Reagan’s economic policies led to years of American prosperity. Obama’s health care bill sucked the life out of the economy (and the bill has not yet gone into full effect). As we celebrate the Gipper’s 100th birthday, let us honor the Reagan’s true legacy anchored in America’s First Principles, lest we be fooled by liberals waxing Reaganesque.
Keep Reading about Reagan Reclaimed
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Matthew 7:16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?
Matthew 7:20
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
Mark Rudd, a former Weather Underground Terrorist [and unrepentant Marxist to this day] exposed, in 2008, what we all believed; to have it confirmed by one of Obama's fellow travelers is incredibly useful! I love the fact that this guy wanted to feel relevant enough to confirm (over at theragblog.blogspot.com) our understanding! This information makes it easier to make the case to the masses who do not pay attention to the news, and who get their information from CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, CBS News, ABC News, New York Times, Washington Post, and other corrupted national news sources.
Enjoy this confirmation of the truth we all knew was there; despite being published on a blog in 2008, it was recently brought to my attention by New Zeal:
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Tuesday, January 25, 2011 | Posted By TREVOR LOUDON
It is clear that [White House Resident] Barack Obama is going to move his rhetoric to the center, even to the right, as he positions himself for 2012. After all he can hardly talk further left can he?
But as the beguiling one talks like Ronald Reagan, we should all keep an eye on his actions.
We should also remember this analysis from former Weather Underground terrorist Mark Rudd [photo at right from 1968], written just after the 2008 elections:
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Obama is a very strategic thinker. He knew precisely what it would take to get elected and didn't blow it. He used community organizing methods to mobilize a base consisting of many people who had never voted before or who regularly don't vote....But he also knew that what he said had to basically play to the center to not be run over by the press, the Republicans, scare centrist and cross-over voters away. He made it.
So he has a narrow mandate for change, without any direction specified. What he's doing now is moving on the most popular issues -- the environment, health care, and the economy. He'll be progressive on the environment because that has broad popular support; health care will be extended to children, then made universal, but the medical, pharmaceutical, and insurance corporations will stay in place, perhaps yielding some power; the economic agenda will stress stimulation from the bottom sometimes and handouts to the top at other times. It will be pragmatic...
And I agree with this strategy. Anything else will court sure defeat. Move on the stuff you can to a small but significant extent, gain support and confidence. Leave the military alone because they're way too powerful. For now, until enough momentum is raised. By the second or third year of this recession, when stimulus is needed at the bottom, people may begin to discuss cutting the military budget if security is being increased through diplomacy and application of nascent international law.
Obama plays basketball. I'm not much of an athlete, barely know the game, but one thing I do know is that you have to be able to look like you're doing one thing but do another. That's why all these conservative appointments are important: the strategy is feint to the right, move left. Any other strategy invites sure defeat. It would be stupid to do otherwise in this environment...
Read Obama's first book, "Dreams from My Father." The second section is the story of his three years doing community organizing in Chicago. It's some of the best writing on organizing I've ever seen. That's all it's about, the core of the book. Obama learned many lessons of strategy and patience...
This is no stupid guy... Had any of the stupid Republicans read his books, they never could have said, "We don't know who this guy is." You know every thought he's ever had.
Rudd, an unrepentant Marxist to this day, works closely with at three people who have been close to Obama in the recent past - Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn and Carl Davidson.
This is as honest an evaluation of Obama's strategy and tactics as you are likely to get.
at the Reagan Ranch in Santa Barbara, CA
