What Would Reagan Really Do?
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http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2015/12/ted-cruz-is-more-dangerous-than-donald.htmlA Party Reagan Wouldn’t Recognize
During Tuesday night’s Republican debate, a.k.a. DEFCON 1, Republicans portrayed the United States as a tremulous nation cowering before the threat of Islamic terrorism. In a debate about national security, the field of nine candidates used images of war, death, and enemy infiltration to profit politically from ISIS-related attacks in Paris and San Bernardino. Led by Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, and Chris Christie, the fear-mongers projected an image of a diminished America that is grotesquely at odds with the way Americans have historically viewed themselves.
The Republicans were also at odds with one of their heroes: former President Ronald Reagan, whom they credit with restoring American confidence at home and abroad, not only with his actions, but with his words. What follows is a comparison of a few of the candidates’ statements with those uttered by Mr. Reagan in his farewell speech to the nation as he left office in 1988.
Donald Trump: “We are not talking about isolation. We’re talking about security. We’re not talking about religion. We’re talking about security. Our country is out of control. People are pouring across the southern border. I will build a wall. It will be a great wall.”
Ronald Reagan: “I’ve been reflecting on what the past eight years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind like a refrain is a nautical one — a small story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled, ‘Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.’
“A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter, couldn’t get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I. Because that’s what it was to be an American.”
Marco Rubio: “Today you have millions of Americans that feel left out and out of place in their own country, struggling to live paycheck to paycheck, called bigots because they hold on to traditional values. And around the world, America’s influence has declined while this president has destroyed our military, our allies no longer trust us, and our adversaries no longer respect us.”
Donald Trump: “I don’t want our country to be taken away from us, and that’s what’s happening. The policies that we’ve suffered under other presidents have been a disaster for our country.”
Jeb Bush: “Our freedom is under attack. Our economy is under water. The leading democrat is under investigation. And America is under the gun to lead the free world to protect our civilized way of life.”
Ronald Reagan: “I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation — from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries.”
Ben Carson: “The war that we are fighting now against radical Islamist jihadists is one that we must win. Our very existence is dependent upon that. Right now, the United States of America is the patient. And the patient is in critical condition and will not be cured by political correctness and will not be cured by timidity.”
Marco Rubio: ISIS “needs to be confronted with serious proposals. And this is a very significant threat we face. And the president has left us unsafe. He spoke the other night to the American people to reassure us. I wish he hadn’t spoken at all. He made things worse. Because what he basically said was we are going to keep doing what we’re doing now, and what we are doing now is not working.”
Ronald Reagan: “Because we’re a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.”
Ted Cruz: “It’s not a war on a faith; it’s a war on a political and theocratic ideology that seeks to murder us.”
Chris Christie: “We have people across this country who are scared to death. Because I could tell you this, as a former federal prosecutor, if a center for the developmentally disabled in San Bernardino, California, is now a target for terrorists, that means everywhere in America is a target for these terrorists.”
Ronald Reagan: “That’s about all I have to say tonight, except for one thing. The past few days when I’ve been at that window upstairs, I’ve thought a bit of the ‘shining city upon a hill.’ John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we’d call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don’t know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That’s how I saw it, and see it still.”
After just 10 minutes of the candidates’ panicky blather, one of the moderators, the conservative radio commentator Hugh Hewitt, asked a question that was more of an observation.
“This is the Christmas dinner debate. This will be the debate that Americans talk about at Christmas. And thus far, in the first 10 minutes, we haven’t heard a lot about Ronald Reagan’s city on a hill,” Mr. Hewitt said. “We’ve heard a lot about keeping Americans out or keeping Americans safe and everyone else out.
“Is this what you want the party to stand for?”
So far, it seems that way.
DECEMBER 16, 2015
New York Times
New York Times
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