Some Reading Notes

Having been down for a "procedure" on Friday, I have been a little out of touch with the news and what is going on in the world, but it did give me an opportunity to finish up my book on Gorbachev, read another one on Reagan, and then a final book on Billy the Kid. All very interesting reads.

I was fascinated with several aspects of the book on Reagan. It is called When Character was King by Peggy Noonan, who was a former speech writer for the president. It was truly inspiring and just a further affirmation of what a genuinely amazing leader and person that Ronald Reagan was.

One thing that Peggy brought up was that after WWII, the upper income tax rate had soared to 94%. That was shocking, but it was also reassuring. If we think the punitive tax increases that we will see in the future are bad, they are nothing compared to what they were before Kennedy and Reagan got to them.

The other thing, and something that made a very big impression on me, was the assassination attempt that was made on Reagan by the mentally ill Hinckley. Not the attempt itself, but the amazing split second response by the secret service. These men jumped into action so quickly it is mind boggling. As the first shots were fired (and there were six of them) the first agent(Parr) doubled Reagan over and pushed him into the car, doing everything he could to shield the president with his own body. Another agent, McCarthy, who opened the door of the car did something that is so counter intuitive that can only be achieved through countless ours of mental and physical training. As gun shots are being fired and everyone is ducking for cover he turns to find the gunman and puts himself between the gunman and the president, with his arms spread out to INCREASE his chances of taking a bullet for the president. In this case, he was effective. In the video you can see as the agent is struck on his right side and nearly lifted off of his feet.

The end result is that the president escapes. The only bullet that strikes him is one that ricochets off the door frame. Of course that was almost enough to kill the 70 year old president, when the bullet came within an inch of his heart.

These two men changed the history of the United States and quite possibly the world by their selfless actions. Just a few months into his presidency, Ronald Wilson Reagan had already begun to shake things up, but not nearly as much as he would.

Thank you Jerry Parr and agent Timothy McCarthy

A great message from a great leader

I caught this one on Youtube while I was looking for something else.

Yeah, it's been kind of a slow day.

Thatcher's Tribute to Reagan

I'm still reading Margaret Thatcher's memoirs. I know, kind of slow, but it isn't exactly easy reading.

She was continually and genuinely impressed with Ronald Reagan and the tremendous leader that he was. She didn't agree with him all of the time and they had extremely different leadership styles, but she knew from the moment that she met him, what an important and historic person that he was and would be.

That's pretty high praise coming from the Iron Lady herself.

I pulled up the eulogy that she recorded when Reagan died. She had suffered from a stroke and so making this video and recording this speech was very difficult for her, but a tribute that had to be made for such a great leader and friend.

Enjoy.

Reagan was a very funny fellow

It's kind of a slow day today.

I found this video of the Gipper and how he used humor. It doesn't have all of his famous lines, but it has some classics. My favorite is the one about age while debating Mondale. You know you are in command of the debate when you can get your opponent laughing.

Part Three

Part 3 of 3
Now let’s take a look at Mitt Romney
Social Conservatism:
- The only firm candidate on this subject, that had any reasonable prospect was Huckabee. He hasn’t changed on this issue, ever, as far as I can find. Romney has. Romney campaigned for the governorship of Massachusetts as a pro-choice candidate. He now says that he is pro-life. The question is, does he mean it and what does it matter. The main things that the next president will do to get rid of, or advance abortion in this country will be in two areas. The first would be rolling back the limitations and funding cuts that Reagan put in place, Bill Clinton rescinded and George Bush put BACK in place. All of the democrats have pledged to do this. The second would be to appoint constructionist judges of the same type as Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas, justices who know the Constitution and the Federalist interpretation of the Constitution and don’t put things into it that simply aren’t there. They don’t pull from international law and they don’t view the Constitution as a living/evolving document. This will be crucial. Romney has pledged to appoint such men. It is worth noting that the next president will probably get to pick two more Supreme Court justices in addition to numerous appellate court justices. If you can remember back (before I was born), once upon a time Ronald Reagan was not only a democrat, but himself changed on the life issue. He changed firmly, decisively and never went back. Do we trust Romney to do the same?

Fiscal Conservative:
- Romney has signed a pledge NOT to raise taxes. He has been highly critical of government spending. He has a long history of running business and running them well. He bailed out the Olympic debacle and turned it around. All good things. I think of all of the candidates he would do the best in this area and the main issue in this election has become the economy. I don’t know that he would make serious progress, but I think he would push us a little further in the right direction.

National Defense Conservative:
- Romney seems to have a firm grasp on the issue of who are enemies are and how they need to be treated. Contrary to what the McCain camp has been saying about him, he has been solidly behind the surge in Iraq and seems to have an aptitude for cleaning up organization messes. He has a firm grasp on the illegal immigration issue and is pushing heavily for border enforcement. All in all, pretty solid.

Over all:
- Romney has a problem with his image and comes across as “too perfect” or even “plastic” and so some people don’t like him. To me that makes about as much sense as voting for McCain because his wife is pretty. The fact is that while he hasn’t been the most consistent candidate over his entire political career, he has governed and he has led and he has done both well. He knows the economy and his stance on most issues is inside the walls of the conservative spectrum. Is he a 100% conservative? No (I would say Reagan was a 95%), but neither is McCain. I would give McCain about an 80% and Romney about a 88%.

When it comes down to the final straw, quite frankly I think that Romney is the better hope for something better. I think he would handle the economy better than Bush has and I think he would be just as tough on AQ, Iran and all of the other bad guys out there that hate America. He's not a Reagan. He doesn't have the charisma, the poise or the presence the RR did.

McCain is lacking in all of these areas as well. He does have a certain charm and roughness, but it's just as likely to tick people off as it is to make them laugh. McCain is a centrist in the truest sense of the word and regularly likes to jab his fellow Reps just for spite.

As you can see, I'm not really thrilled with either of the choices this time around. I have heard and understand the idea that maybe we need a Jimmy Carter so that we can get another RR, but I'm concerned that a Democrat President with a Democrat Congress could do an almost immeasurable amount of damage to our economy, healthcare system and national defense. Obama and Clinton would both take us further down a socialist track. Universal Healthcare will bankrupt this country and destroy a highly functional system. Once you go down that track, it's almost impossible to come back, i.e. Social Security.

Ugh. I think either Romney or McCain can beat Hillary. I'd rather it be Romney, but having Hillary on the ticket would be enough to energize the Rep base to get out to vote against her. Obama is a different deal. He scares me. If it's even possible, he is MORE liberal than Hillary but infinitely more charismatic and magnetic. People aren't looking at his ideas, they are listening to his dribble and watching Oprah fawn all over him. They think he is JFK re-incarnated, but ignore the fact that he is the polar OPPOSITE of almost everything JFK stood for. JFK asked "not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country". Obama asks, what do you want this country to go bankrupt to give you?

Democrats are following the Saul Alinski playbook. Tell people they are miserable. Give them a target for their misery and then tell them that you will save them. Class envy/warfare at it's worst.

As Super Tuesday Approaches: Part One of Three

Part One of Three:

People have asked me recently who they should vote for. My answer is, “well, I’m not sure who YOU should vote for, because that’s YOUR decision.”

However, I thought it would be useful to give you my low down and tell you how my thought process works.

First of all, looking at all of the candidates, much to my dismay, Ronald Reagan isn’t running this time. That’s probably obvious to everyone, but the fact is that RR was the head of a movement, the conservative movement. The basis of the movement was and is this:

Social Conservatism:
o Life is sacred. Whether that be the life of a mother of two kids or the life of an unborn child. Whether that be a 90 year old with Alzheimer’s or a baby that is going to be born with a mental handicap. All life is sacred because God made it sacred.
o This country was founded on Christian principles. That doesn’t make it the national religion, but it does mean that it is historically accurate to talk about it.
o The best thing for this country is to maintain the institution of marriage. One man, one woman. That’s the way it was always meant to be. It is not the job of the government to step in and redefine it.

Fiscal Conservatism:
o Lower taxes + lower government spending = Economic prosperity for all
o This is a Federalist system. You can go back and read 85 essays on how the founding fathers interpreted and meant by the constitution. Everyone should read it. The federal government did not create the states, the states created the federal government.
o The government has certain things that it was created to do, most everything else can and should be cut or cut back.

National Defense Conservatism:
o The primary responsibility of the President and the federal government is to protect the people.
o We can negotiate with other countries only when we can negotiate from a position of strength. Basically, we need to be THE military might in the world. We need to know who our friends are and stand by them. We need to know who our enemies are and stand against them.

Now, like I said these are principles of a movement. No one man will follow them perfectly. Even Reagan himself had at least a hand full of mistakes on these principles, but by far followed them better than any other president that we have had.