I've been reading through some of Ronald Reagan's old speeches recently. Now that he's gone, it's easy to forget what a great man he truly was. It is also easy to lose sight of the clarity and depth of his political philosophy, which drew upon the purest springs of the Western liberal tradition, from Locke, Smith, and Mill to Hayek and von Mises. I was particularly struck by these excerpts from one of Reagan's earliest public speeches in 1964:
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream -- the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order -- or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."
Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.
It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government." This idea that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power, is still the newest, 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 capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
Reading these words, I recognize how fortunate America was to have found its voice in Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. He was the right man for a historic moment, and the right man to remind us all of what America means. May he rest in peace...at BadgerPundit, he will not soon be forgotten.
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