"Twin beacons of faith and freedom..."

Here's an interesting video clip I came across. It shows Ronald Reagan's Christmas (not "holiday," Christmas) address in 1981. Oh my goodness, can you imagine ANY president being able to get away with saying this stuff nowadays? Not that our current president would get anywhere close...

Remember this guy?

When Ronald Reagan was president, I was in my first year in college. I was also a good and dutiful liberal, so like all libs I dutifully hated Reagan without being able to specify why. In fact I spent both his terms in office hating him so much, I never heard what he said.

I'm fully aware of the errors Reagan made in office -- believe me, I ran with the crowd that crowed over every one -- but now that I'm older and wiser, I recognize him for the rare president that he was.  A friend just sent me some of his sayings. Can you possibly imagine any of these being uttered today by a politician? Naahhhhh.....
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"Socialism only works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it, and hell where they already have it."
-Ronald Reagan

'Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose.'
-Ronald Reagan

'The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'
-Ronald Reagan

'The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so.'
-Ronald Reagan

'Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong.'
-Ronald Reagan

'I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress..
-Ronald Reagan

'The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination.'
-Ronald Reagan

'Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.'
-Ronald Reagan

'The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program.'
-Ronald Reagan

'It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.'
-Ronald Reagan

'Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it, and if it stops moving, subsidize it'
-Ronald Reagan

'Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book.'
-Ronald Reagan

'No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women.'
-Ronald Reagan

'If we ever forget that we're one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under.'
-Ronald Reagan

Quote of the Day

"I've noticed that everyone who is for abortion has already been born."

--Ronald Reagan

Unless.....

"A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father's shop. He has no formal education. He owns no property of any kind. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father's shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside. Walking from place to place preaching all the while even though he is in no way an ordained minister. He never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing -- the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place so he is interred in a borrowed tomb.

"End of story? No, this uneducated, property less young man who preached on street corners for only three years, who left no written word, has for 2000 years had a greater effect on the entire world than all the rulers, kings and emperors, all the conquerors, the generals and admirals, all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who ever lived -- all put together. How do we explain that? ...Unless he really was what he said he was."

- Ronald Reagan

No no! Entitlements good!

In response to last weekend's column in which I lamented the desire for people to get entitlements for everything from starting a business to getting health care, I received the following email:
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You have better wake up to the realities of the 21st Century. There are no jobs out there and those few good jobs that do exist are going to the minorities and overseas workers due to diversity, Affirmative Action and visas (Over 70% of the new jobs are going to illegal aliens).

You are writing about the realities of the time prior to President Ronald Reagan. This was the president who changed everything and put America on the skids from which we will never recover.

President Reagan was the person who with his amnesty program opened the door to the fifty million illegal aliens and their stealing of tens of millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of our welfare dollars.

This is the president who with his Free Trade policies allowed tens of millions of our good jobs to go overseas and to Mexico, resulting in tens of millions of Americans settling for jobs paying half of their former wages. And this is the president who violated the civil service laws and had tens of thousands of tenured Federal employees thrown out in the streets, never to get a good job again. (I was one.)

Wake up, sister. You have been living in the woods too long.
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I'm sitting here trying to wrap my mind around the idea that this guy is still blaming Ronald Reagan for his inability to get another job that paid as well as his government job. Uh, sir, it's been 21 years since Reagan left office. And you haven't been able to "get a good job" since then? Have you considered going back to school or something?

Which leads back to my original point in the article: Why are YOU entitled to MY help in obtaining a job?

Just asking.