How Reagan’s Five Little Words Helped Change a Nation

On July 17, 1980, 35 years ago, when he accepted the Republican presidential nomination, Ronald Reagan—the great communicator—outlined what he intended to do as president with five little words—family, work, neighborhood, peace, and freedom.

Family.

Reagan was always outspoken about pro-life issues such as the need to protect the unborn child. In 1984, for example, he published “Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation,” becoming the first president to write a book while in office. In his acceptance address, he emphasized that “work and family are at the center of our lives, the foundation of our dignity as a free people.”

Work.

In his acceptance, Reagan argued that across-the-board tax cuts would jump-start the American economy—mired in stagflation as a result of Jimmy Carter’s failed policies. He stressed the dignity of work and said that the ability to support yourself was essential to a free people and a free nation.

“Reaganomics” proved to be the right medicine for our ailing economy—unemployment dropped dramatically, inflation subsided, and 17 million new jobs were added.

Neighborhood.

Reagan quoted Thomas Jefferson more than any other founder citing his firm commitment to liberty and limited government. In the face of an ever expanding federal government, candidate Reagan called for a renewal of “our compact of freedom.”

Echoing Alexis de Tocqueville and his praise of America’s voluntary associations, Reagan urged the people to restore “the American spirit of voluntary service, of cooperation, of private and community initiative.”

He promised that as president “everything that can be run more effectively by state and local government we shall turn over to state and local government, along with the funding sources to pay for it.” He would later call it “a New Federalism.”

Peace.

Reagan believed deeply in the concept of peace through strength—a phrase first used by President Dwight D. Eisenhower—and as president he championed a sophisticated, multi-faceted foreign policy that led, shortly after he left office, to the collapse of communism in Eastern and Central Europe and the dissolution of what he once called “an evil empire,” the Soviet Union.

In his 1980 address, he declared that “it is the responsibility of the President of the United States, in working for peace, to insure that the safety of our people cannot successfully be threatened by a hostile foreign power.”

As president, he strengthened the military, supported anti-communist forces around the world, and most critical of all introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative that convinced the Soviets they could not win the arms race.

Freedom.

In his acceptance remarks, Reagan promised to limit the overreach of the federal government into the lives of Americans. “We must have the clarity of vision,” he said, “to see the difference between what is essential and what is merely desirable; and then the courage to bring our government back under control.”

Through his historic tax cuts and pruning of non-essential services, President Reagan was able to free up the economy and enable Americans at all economic levels to spend their money as they and not the government wished.

At the same time, he initiated a Reagan Doctrine in foreign policy predicated on a simple solution to ending the Cold War: “We win and they lose.” By the end of the decade, and after Reagan had gone to Berlin and challenged the Soviet leadership, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” the wall was no more and all of Europe knew true peace for the first time in over 40 years.

As a candidate and as a president, Ronald Reagan cautioned against depending on one political leader or one political party. “My view of government,” he said, “places trust … in those values that transcend persons and parties. The trust is where it belongs—in the people. The responsibility to live up to that trust is where it belongs, in [our] elected leaders.”

Reagan saw himself as part of that relationship, committed to the first principles that had formed America and that keep her and all of us free. From beginning to end, he was a great communicator who understood the importance of great ideas and communicated them as no other president has in modern times.

Via: Daily Signal

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America needs a rebirth of freedom

Your freedom is slipping away as Washington’s power grows. Your freedom is undermined by a more intrusive government, which increasingly dictates how you run your life. The principles of America’s Founding have never been more at risk.

Washington is taking over your health care. Encouraging illegal immigration as a political force to suppress your freedom. Raising your taxes. Enslaving your family by national debt. Coddling dictators and gutting our national defenses. While some “conservatives” may have abandoned principle or compromised needlessly, The Heritage Foundation is confronting the crisis with a bold plan to give America a new birth of freedom.

To meet the crisis, Heritage is launching Reclaim America, a revolutionary campaign—unprecedented by any policy organization—to rapidly restore the constitutional rule of “We the People.”

Reclaim America will use four revolutionary strategies to drastically reduce Washington’s power. We will liberate Americans from big government, dethrone the special interests that hold sway over both parties, and end the chokehold the Left has on America.

Reclaim America’s aim is simple: Change America’s trajectory. Beginning right now.

Via: Heritage.com

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A Virtuous Society

When a society abandons these virtues, the people become corrupt, and unwilling to abide by the rule of law. A viciousness blankets the people, which leads to violence and lawlessness

Benjamin Franklin emphasized that without virtue, free societies could not properly function.  He said, “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters.”

With freedom comes responsibility.  The responsible society is one that is virtuous.  A man with virtue is a man that possesses “sacred honor.”  It is for the sake of a free society that men must deny the evils of human nature, and implement the principles of being virtuous into their own lives.  It is best for society, and for one’s own existence, to strive for betterment, to strive to improve oneself each and every day.  To be civilized, and be restrained from the temptation of mob rule, is among the cornerstones of a free society.

Benjamin Franklin established that the journey to being a moral culture is anchored in thirteen virtues.  Franklin worked daily to achieve a moral life by pursuing these thirteen virtues.  He even kept a journal and charts to assist him in keeping track of his progress in living his life with each of the virtues as his guide.  Franklin admitted that perfection is unattainable, agreeing with biblical doctrine that “all have fallen short of the Glory of God,” but he believed that being in constant pursuit of a moral life would make him, and anyone else that pursued this kind of life, a better and happier individual.  If society was filled with such people who sought a moral life, society would remain prosperous and free, and liberty would be maintained.

Via: Canada Free Press

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The Four Freedoms: 75 Years of Liberal Betrayal

In the second half of the 2000s liberals did a fine job of blaming Bush for everything that went wrong in the US. His "neo-con" supporters, they asserted, were just as bad.

Now that President Obama and his signature legislation are a twin disaster the same opportunity beckons for conservatives. It's not just Obama, it's the whole liberal project that created this mess. So the road to 2016 involves discrediting Obama, but also the whole liberal ruling class.

A good place to start would be FDR's Four Freedoms, for when the campaign to elect the un-Obama kicks off in 2016 it will be 75 years since Franklin Delano Roosevelt unveiled his Four Freedoms on January 6, 1941. In case you forgot, the freedoms were:

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of Worship

Freedom from Want

Freedom from Fear

Have you ever thought about how the liberals have utterly betrayed the noble sentiments of the Four Freedoms?
Nothing personal here. It's just that all power corrupts, and liberal power corrupts absolutely.

Let us give our liberal friends the benefit of the doubt and stipulate that, then and now, liberals believe what they say they believe in. Even so, for the sake of truth, justice and the American Way, we must look at the liberal record on the Four Freedoms.

Via: American Thinker

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The Progressive Degradation of Freedom

There are Chinese towns near the border with North Korea that send rice across the Yalu River in exchange for girls to marry.  It makes sense.  North Korea needs rice, because communist farming is a failure.  China needs girls, after thirty years of sex-selective abortion and female infanticide.  And this neat little arrangement in an obscure corner of the East holds an important lesson for what is left of a Western civilization looking down the barrel of a gun of its own aiming: the feeling of self-determination can be reduced to the satisfaction of having a daughter to sell for food. 

As totalitarian dreamers of both the one-party and multi-party varieties have long understood, and have come to count on, humans have an almost infinitely elastic ability to accommodate themselves to conditions that seem inescapable or predetermined.  Our natural desire for self-preservation virtually guarantees it -- there is almost no degradation that men cannot learn to live with, given enough time. 

"Learning to live with it," however, is both a natural reflex and a great danger.  For although self-preservation is not at all the same as acquiescence, the former can devolve into a rationalization of the latter due to the slackening of will and reason that results from battle fatigue and the stretching of the soul's moral cords by' the constant pull of inescapable conditions.  And when this slackening of the soul occurs, men may become bound to oppressive rulers more firmly than could ever be achieved with mere chains and fences.  For what they are losing is a faculty of perception less obviously vital to our bare existence than others, and therefore easier than others to survive without, namely the capacity to feel free. 

Via: American Thinker

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EXCLUSIVE: GOP Platform includes Internet Freedom, language indicates influence of Rand Paul and libertarian-Republicans

Republicans could soon champion the protection of Internet Freedom as an official party issue, The Daily Caller has learned. Language in the final draft of the Internet freedom proposal was obtained exclusively by The Daily Caller.

The language was finalized on Tuesday, a source in the Republican Party told The Daily Caller, but it awaits party approval next week at the upcoming Republican National Convention.

Approval of the newly finalized draft language, however, would make the party the first of the two dominant political parties to fully and officially embrace Internet freedom. It also signals what Republicans view as important and necessary to keep the Internet open and free.

“Internet Freedom”, according to the finalized draft language, would entail the removal of “regulatory barriers” for technology businesses, resistance to international governance of the Internet and the “constitutional protection” of personal data.

“We will remove regulatory barriers that protect outdated technologies and business plans from innovation and competition, while preventing legacy regulation from interfering with new technologies such as mobile delivery of voice and video data as they become crucial components of the Internet ecosystem,” said the finalized draft.

“We will resist any effort to shift control away from the successful multi-stakeholder approach of Internet governance and toward governance by international or other intergovernmental organizations,” it said.

“We will ensure that personal data receives full constitutional protection from government overreach and that individuals retain the right to control the use of their data by third parties,” it said.

Via: The Daily Caller

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