Our Time for Choosing Up or Down - The American Spectator | USA News and Politics
Our Time for Choosing Up or Down
by

Dan Henninger, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, recently wrote that those seeking to derail Donald Trump’s express train to the GOP nomination should give “The Speech.” Mr. Henninger opined that it was time for Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio to deliver a rival to Nixon’s “Checkers speech,” John Kennedy’s speech on Catholicism, or Barack Obama’s 2008 speech on race. However, the gold standard for Mr. Henninger is Ronald Reagan’s 1964 speech, “A Time for Choosing.”

His column prompted me to reread the transcript from over 50 years ago. Having done so, I now understand Mr. Henninger’s advice, but would add this caveat. Today, March 2016, is the time for all Americans to read Mr. Reagan’s speech as if he were giving it today. When Republicans, Democrats, liberals, conservatives, rich, poor, white, black or Hispanic, take the time to put Reagan’s words into today’s context, they will understand what a true leader is. They will also understand that much of what Reagan said in 1964 applies in 2016, only with more urgency.

Consider the issues that concerned Mr. Reagan in 1964 about America’s future:

  • “No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income…”
  • “We haven’t balanced our budget in 28 out of the last 34 years. We’ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months, and our national debt is one and one half times bigger than all the combined debts of the nations of the world…”
  • “We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars…”
  • Some Democratic representatives define “liberalism as ‘meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government…’”
  • “Well, I, for one, resent it when a representative of the people refers to you and me, the free men and women of this country, as ‘the masses.’ This is a term we haven’t applied to ourselves in America. But beyond that, ‘the full power of centralized government’ — this was the very thing the Founding Fathers sought to minimize…”

Obviously, Mr. Reagan could be describing the America of 2016, not one from 50 years ago. In his speech, he went on to identify other problems familiar to today’s American citizens, such as:

  • The absolute inefficiency of departments such as the Agriculture Department.
  • The government’s abuse of eminent domain.
  • A three-decade-old failure to solve unemployment through government planning.
  • The failure of the “War on Poverty.”
  • The Ponzi scheme known as Social Security
  • Wasteful foreign aid.
  • The fact that one in six working Americans worked for the federal government.

Perhaps the most amazing parallel between the America Reagan spoke about in 1964 and today’s version lies in his comments about socialism. Consider that the 2016 version of the Democratic Party features as one of its two candidates an admitted and avowed socialist, one who not only doesn’t try to hide his socialist views, but in fact flaunts them. Ronald Reagan, in 1964, said:

Last February 19th at the University of Minnesota, Norman Thomas, six-times candidate for President on the Socialist Party ticket, said, “If Barry Goldwater became President, he would stop the advance of socialism in the United States. I think that’s exactly what he would do…”

But as a former Democrat, I can tell you Norman Thomas isn’t the only man who has drawn this parallel to socialism with the present administration, because back in 1936, Mr. Democrat himself, Al Smith, the great American, came before the American people and charged that the leadership of his Party was taking the Party of Jefferson, Jackson and Cleveland down the road under the banners of Marx, Lenin, and Stalin…”

Apparently, Americans have once again forgotten the lessons of history that every place it’s been tried — the Soviet Union, Communist China, etc. — socialism has utterly failed to deliver on its utopian promises. In today’s America, Bernie Sanders and the Democratic Party no longer feel the need to hide the true nature of their failed policies, they proudly campaign on them.

However, Democrats in 2016 don’t have a lock on the refusal to confront the need to choose between tough solutions to real problems and fantasies. Republicans, unless they quickly change their mind, are about to choose a candidate who has promised them:

  • Mexico will pay to solve our immigration problems.
  • We can engage in a trade war with China and will still enjoy cheap exports.
  • Our libel laws need to be loosened so politicians can sue those who disagree with them.
  • Planned Parenthood should be funded even though he’s now against abortions.
  • He’s for the little guy except when he needs to take their property.
  • We don’t need to cut spending; he’s going to make America great again by being the greatest “Jobs President.” In other words, we can keep spending like drunken sailors.
  • His political heroes are strong leaders such as Putin and Mussolini.
  • In his America, anyone who disagrees with him is a “loser.”

I consider myself extremely lucky to have lived in an America in which Ronald Reagan’s views were ultimately chosen by Americans. Admittedly, Reagan’s philosophy had to wait 16 years after his great speech to be implemented. I think our country and my fellow Americans are at a similar time for choosing. Unfortunately, we can’t wait another 16 years to return to Reagan’s way . Almost all of the problems he identified 50 years ago still exist, and have only worsened. As President Reagan prophetically said 50 years ago:

And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people, is still the newest and 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 capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves…

It’s time for the American people to choose —self-governance, or elite rule by the Socialists or by a strong man like Trump. In making this choice, it’s not a question of right vs. left, or liberal vs. conservative. It’s what Ronald Reagan forecast in 1964:

You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well, I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There’s only an up or down; [up] man’s old, age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course…

For the sake of my children and my one-year-old grandson, Aidan, as well as the rest of my fellow citizens, I hope we choose up.

Sign up to receive our latest updates! Register


By submitting this form, you are consenting to receive marketing emails from: . You can revoke your consent to receive emails at any time by using the SafeUnsubscribe® link, found at the bottom of every email. Emails are serviced by Constant Contact

Be a Free Market Loving Patriot. Subscribe Today!