Posted on 06/04/2008 8:11:30 PM PDT by Loud Mime
Ronald Reagan Quotes
In commemoration of his death four years ago, Founders' Quotes will honor Ronald Reagan today.
"Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
We who live in free market societies believe that growth, prosperity and ultimately human fulfillment, are created from the bottom up, not the government down. Only when the human spirit is allowed to invent and create, only when individuals are given a personal stake in deciding economic policies and benefiting from their success -- only then can societies remain economically alive, dynamic, progressive, and free. Trust the people. This is the one irrefutable lesson of the entire postwar period contradicting the notion that rigid government controls are essential to economic development.
We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." 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.
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
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. So we have come to a time for choosing.
Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.
"...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever."
"It is up to us...to work together for progress and humanity so that our grandchildren, when they look back at us, can truly say that we not only preserved the flame of freedom, but cast its warmth and light further than those who came before us."
"There is no question that we have failed to live up to the dreams of the founding fathers many times and in many places. Sometimes we do better than others. But all in all, the one thing we must be on guard against is thinking that because of this, the system has failed. The system has not failed. Some human beings have failed the system."
"If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation."
"No one who lived through the Great Depression can ever look upon an unemployed person with anything but compassion. To me, there is no greater tragedy than a breadwinner willing to work, with a job skill but unable to find a market for that job skill. Back in those dark depression days I saw my father on a Christmas eve open what he thought was a Christmas greeting from his boss. Instead, it was the blue slip telling him he no longer had a job. The memory of him sitting there holding that slip of paper and then saying in a half whisper, 'That's quite a Christmas present,' it will stay with me as long as I live."
"It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work -- work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivity, not stifle it. This Administration's objective will be a healthy, vigorous, growing economy. "
"Recession is when your neighbor loses his job. Depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his."
"I have left orders to be awakened at any time in case of national emergency -- even if I'm in a Cabinet meeting."
"What makes him think a middle-aged actor, who's played with a chimp, could have a future in politics?" -on Clint Eastwood's bid to become mayor of Carmel
Ping
* sigh *
There will never be another Reagan, but we can always hope.
~~~ Ronald Reagan
Lord I miss this Great Man!!
And it is still true today. RIP Mr President.
There, fixed it.
bump
Sadly, one of the greatest tributes to the man came from the secret service in his declining years. He loved to keep busy and would spend hours raking leaves from the pool. It would last hours as every time he would turn his back, the secret service agents would toss in more leaves to give him something enjoyable to do.
Liberals are like puppies, all warm and fuzzy... the only difference is that puppies open there eyes after six weeks!
It didn’t need fixing. I would take eight more years of Reagan anytime. The best president since Washington, IMHO.
I have resigned myself to the fact that Reagan was once in a lifetime. We, and the Republic, will not live long enough to see another.
He officially died in 2004 but the last public speech he gave was in 1994 I believe, interestingly enough when Conservatives reached their apex. Since then it’s been all downhill with a few exeptions like tax cuts and a balanced budget for a year before the tech bubble burst.
Illinois and California should be setting up Centennial Reagan celebrations in 2011.
The best president of my lifetime and maybe the best president of the 20th Century.
Bump!
I feel honored that the first President I voted for was Ronald Reagan...
We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much.
- Loud Mime
I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. -Winston Churchill
- Winston Churchill
"Approximately 80% of our air pollution stems from hydrocarbons released by vegetation, so let's not go overboard in setting and enforcing tough emission standards from man-made sources."
"Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets."
"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."
“Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem.”
"We don't have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven't taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much"
“These young Americans sent a message to terrorists everywhere. . . . You can run but you can't hide.”
"Abortion is advocated only by persons who have themselves been born"
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