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Wow...... how differently we all see the world. Frankly I've never been more embarrassed of our countries leadership....
I don't know that we've ever had such a weak leader in our history.
Frankly sir, you belong to a fringe in this country. The majority of President Obama's own party abandoned him in the last election, so what is it that you see in him that apparently no one else can? Or do you belong to the camp that says he can do no wrong no matter what?
Yes, we see the world very differently... That said, Obama wasn't abandoned during the last election, he wasn't even on the ballot. Democrats, to my disapproval, don't turn out in large numbers in midterm elections. Both times Obama was on the ballot he gave his opponents a serious beat down. McCain down for the count, Romney down for the count... It's a good chance the Democrats will take back the Senate in 2016, reduce the Republican's majority in the House, and hold onto the White House as well. What will you call that once it happens?
Yes, we see the world very differently... That said, Obama wasn't abandoned during the last election, he wasn't even on the ballot. Democrats, to my disapproval, don't turn out in large numbers in midterm elections. Both times Obama was on the ballot he gave his opponents a serious beat down. McCain down for the count, Romney down for the count... It's a good chance the Democrats will take back the Senate in 2016, reduce the Republican's majority in the House, and hold onto the White House as well. What will you call that once it happens?
I've actually seen this Reagan video like 5 times. Its from the 1964 election where Barry Goldwater(Republican) got absolutely destroyed.
Its a wonderful speech though, and I like what Reagan says, but how I interpret it has really changed over the years.
When I was a liberal, I would have interpreted it as an overly patriotic fluff speech justifying war, or at least a very aggressive foreign policy. And I wouldn't have been able to sit all the way through it.
When I was a libertarian, I thought it was a great speech which symbolized freedom primarily in juxtaposition to the statism of liberalism/socialism.
As I've become more anarchistic, I look at the principles of what he says in the video and apply them absolutely.
When he says, "There's no argument over the choice between peace and war, but there's only one guaranteed way you can have peace—and you can have it in the next second—surrender.
If we continue to accommodate, continue to back and retreat, eventually we have to face the final demand—the ultimatum.... And someday when the time comes to deliver the final ultimatum, our surrender will be voluntary, because by that time we will have been weakened from within spiritually, and morally.
You and I know and do not believe that life is so dear and peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery. If nothing in life is worth dying for, when did this begin? Should Moses have told the children of Israel to live in slavery under the pharaohs? Should Christ have refused the cross? Should the patriots at Concord Bridge have thrown down their guns and refused to fire the shot heard 'round the world? The martyrs of history were not fools, and our honored dead who gave their lives to stop the advance of the Nazis didn't die in vain.
Where, then, is the road to peace? Well it's a simple answer after all. You and I have the courage to say to our enemies, "There is a price we will not pay." "There is a point beyond which they must not advance."
Winston Churchill said, "The destiny of man is not measured by material computations."... And he said, "There's something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
To me, I believe all governments to be a form of slavery. And while Reagan's intent is obviously to stir up American patriotism to fight against the commies. The speech could really just as well be used to stir up resistance even to our own government.
It reminds me of this quote by Mencken, "The Gettysburg speech was at once the shortest and the most famous oration in American history... But let us not forget that it is poetry, not logic; beauty, not sense. Think of the argument in it! Put it into the cold words of everyday! The doctrine is simply this: that the Union soldiers who died at Gettysburg sacrificed their lives to the cause of self-determination – "that government of the people, by the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth". It is difficult to imagine anything more untrue. The Union soldiers in the battle actually fought against self-determination; it was the Confederates who fought for the right of their people to govern themselves."
Regardless, the best argument for freedom of all-time was made by this man, Lysander Spooner. This video below is from a long essay. The first half is mostly legal discussion about whether or not a contract you've never signed can be legally binding. The best part is "section 18" and "section 19", which starts at ~1:26:51.
Anyone who realizes how the government is ruled by money/banks/business, will find the Lysander essay to be the most enlightening, thought-provoking, and just plain enjoyable thing you can ever read. I get "pumped up" every time I read it.
The appendix summarizes it pretty well.... Inasmuch as the Constitution was never signed, nor agreed to, by anybody, as a contract, and therefore never bound anybody, and is now binding upon nobody; and is, moreover, such a one as no people can ever hereafter be expected to consent to, except as they may be forced to do so at the point of the bayonet, it is perhaps of no importance what its true legal meaning, as a contract, is. Nevertheless, the writer thinks it proper to say that, in his opinion, the Constitution is no such instrument as it has generally been assumed to be; but that by false interpretations, and naked usurpations, the government has been made in practice a very widely, and almost wholly, different thing from what the Constitution itself purports to authorize. He has heretofore written much, and could write much more, to prove that such is the truth. But whether the Constitution really be one thing, or another, this much is certain – that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist."
And as Thomas Jefferson said, "Every constitution, then, and every law, naturally expires at the end of nineteen years. If it be enforced longer, it is an act of force, and not of right. It may be said, that the succeeding generation exercising, in fact, the power of repeal, this leaves them as free as if the constitution or law had been expressly limited to nineteen years only. In the first place, this objection admits the right, in proposing an equivalent. But the power of repeal is not an equivalent. It might be, indeed, if every form of government were so perfectly contrived, that the will of the majority could always be obtained, fairly and without impediment. But this is true of no form. The people cannot assemble themselves; their representation is unequal and vicious. Various checks are opposed to every legislative proposition. Factions get possession of the public councils, bribery corrupts them, personal interests lead them astray from the general interests of their constituents; and other impediments arise, so as to prove to every practical man, that a law of limited duration is much more manageable than one which needs a repeal." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1789. ME 7:459, Papers 15:396
Most people couldn't wait to vote for him again in 1984.
There's useful idiots during every election, but that's not my point. I'm talking about how he accelerated us down the path of the Military–industrial complex. More so than any recent president.
Do you honestly believe Reagan didn't use a teleprompter? Do you think he gave those speeches off the cuff?
In fact, every president over the last half a century has used teleprompters, but like everything else with Conservatives these days, they like to pretend THIS president is the first one ever.
You watch the Reagan speeches. He is glancing down at his notes. But as any great actor, he was well versed in reading & memorizing his lines.
I think it is so funny, that people think the clear bullet deflection shields, placed in front of presidents and dignitaries, are teleprompters.
Yes he was a great leader and often people forget how he brought this country back from doom thinking. he also was the best in decades on foreign policy. Now days more and more conflict domestically and foreign. Results count.
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