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Saturday, June 6, 2009

A Time for Choosing

Ronald Reagan's famous speech, "A Time for Choosing" (28 minute video)

8 comments:

James Nicholas said...

Smoking good stuff.

Wow. I don't recall ever hearing him speak during his younger days (back in the sixties). He doesn't flinch. He doesn't pull a punch. He just hits you square on, without apology. I like him.

Hmmm. I think I see why you might gravitate to Mr. Reagan.

Ilíon said...

Not only was he a great man, but he *was* a man ... in contrast to the passive-aggressive "meterosexuals" so common today.

MathewK said...

Definitely a man, and i have to say, the fellow currently running America is going in the exact opposite direction. Sad thing is, he was voted in, he didn't take it, it was given to him.

Reagan was right about America being the last stand, the last hope, the last refuge for the oppressed. So many in the western world have worked to undermine that, one day they will get what they yearn for and then they will learn the hard way. Unfortunately, it'll be too late. It's good to learn from your mistakes, but some mistakes are too big and learning afterwards is useless.

Ilíon said...

I had been just a kid, so I'm pretty sure hadn't even heard of Ronald Reagan until he ran against Carter (and, thank God, trounced him) in 1980.

I *might* have become aware of him when he ran against Ford (who was the sitting president at the time) for the Republican nomination in 1976. And, since the GOP ran Ford, the nation ended up with Carter.

In any event, in 1980 I was old enough to vote, and I have been paying attention for some time ... and Reagan was a breath of fresh air! Finally! A politician who *believes* in America, and who *intends* that America with the Cold War, and who is not, at best, seeking merely to manage our "inevitable" surrender to the Soviets.

Nick said...

I wasn't old enough to vote in 1980, but I was around, and at the time wanted Reagan to win the election.

In later years I would come to disagree with Reagan on many things, but I've always believed he really cared about, believed in and valued America's founding principles...and he was certainly better, in many respects, than the person occupying the White House now.

Obama may be leading us to a disaster of monumental proportions.

seeking merely to manage our "inevitable" surrender to the Soviets.

I would only say that the reality was that the collapse of Communism and the USSR was what was really inevitable, as the system's internal contradictions were too great for it to have lasted much longer than it did.

Ilíon said...

I did use quote-marks on the word.

No, of course it was there was no inevitability to us surrendering to the Soviets ... but the people running the country gave every indication of believing that we would and that there was no possibility that we would not, and that we shouldn't even try not to.

Disagree with Reagan on *many* things? That doesn't compute.

James Nicholas said...

SE:
Reagan believed that the Soviet Empire would collapse, had to collapse, because the immorality of its oppressive style was so utterly at odds with what Reagan called man's natural yearning for freedom. However, unlike his predecessors, he had no qualms stating those ideas publically. The fact that the leader of the United States would say unequivocally that we would confront the Soviet Union rather than appease it gave great hope to those dissidents’ and common people that eventually did overthrow the government. Under pressure from Reagan, Gorbachev's efforts to parcel out a teaspoon full of liberty to the freedom starved people of the USSR did not move the Soviets forward, but created the impetuous for it to disintegrate. For this I say, thank you, Ronald Reagan.

Ilíon said...

Mark Steyn, in "Dutch Courage" touches on the pervasive defeatism I was talking about.

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That is, the word verification for the post was the word "pests," and I thought that amusing enough to mention.