Crusader War College

In Memoriam

The Dean directs that the Campus flags be flown at half staff during the period of mourning arising from the passing away of Former President Ronald Reagan.

No other United States President contributed more to the reversal of the decline of the United States, and the re-arranging of the international order, than President Reagan. To him should be credited the destruction of the Soviet Union and its hegemony over the former Warsaw Pact nations. Only those who hate him for crass political reasons give the credit to his Vice President, Bush Sr. in an attempt to begrudge him an achievement that previous administrations didn't have the guts to pull off. Yes, the rickety plane of Communism hit the water on Bush Sr.'s watch, but it was already on it's death dive, trailing smoke, it's insides riddled with the bullets Reagan shot before he turned the guns over when his watch ended.

The victory of Gulf War I would not have been possible given the rickety state of the Armed Forces after Carter's administration. Reagan rennovated them, making them into a force that the Soviet Union felt it had to match. The rescue of Grenada and the liberation of Nicaragua by Reagan added urgency to that felt need to counter the new America. In the ensuing race, we won over the Soviets when the latter collapsed from exhaustion when its heart gave out.

Of course, that would not have been possible without the economic innovations he championed: Supply side economics and tax cuts to stimulate the economy. After the recession wrung all the inflation out of the economy that Carter's incompetence induced in it, the country embarked on an economic expansion that stumbled, in my opinion, when Bush I went back on his "no new taxes" pledge. Bush's simulus package was implmented too late to reignite the expansion soon enough for him to get credit for it. As usual, Clinton took credit for what was not his economy, but Reagan's, which was strong enough to withstand the arrogant tax increases Clinton proposed and got passed.

Of course, what Reagan is most hated for is his reversal of the ascent of liberal power, taking over the Presidency and the Senate, enabling him to start undoing the liberalization of the Supreme Court. When Clinton lost the House to the Republicans, it was not because Newt Gingrich proposed anything new, but merely promised a return to the Ways of Reagan after the outrageous tax increases. The recent tax cuts that are fueling the current expansion were pure Reaganomics. Nobody disputes these facts, which means that Reagan continues to be cursed and hated by those arrogant still to demand that they direct the wages and profits of others.

Well, he's gone now, and in a better place where he, his mind now restored, will be able to rejoice over the victories he couldn't grasp or appreciate in this life. It remains to us to claim what he left us, and continue to fight the good fight:

Then said he, I am going to my Fathers, and tho’ with great difficulty I am got hither, yet now I do not repent me of all the Trouble I have been at to arrive where I am. My Sword I give to him that shall succeed me in my Pilgrimage, and my Courage and my Skill to him that can get it. My Marks and Scars I carry with me, to be a witness for me that I have fought his Battles who now will be my Rewarder. When the day that he must go hence was come, many accompanied him to the River-side, into which as he went he said, Death, where is thy Sting? And as he went down deeper he said, Grave, where is thy Victory?

So he passed over, and all the Trumpets sounded for him on the other side. -- John Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress

Chuck Colson on Reagan Naming Evil

Nicaraguans remember and honor Reagan.

Reaganite, an LGF contributor, was on the Secret Service detail escorting the President to the Capitol.

Freedom's Team.

Reagan was a staunch friend of Israel. (Interesting that the Free Trade Agreement Reagan cut with Israel became the template for NAFTA.)

Baroness Thatcher speaks at the Funeral. (Damn! She used the SAME quote from Bunyan I did!)

Here's Dubya's Eulogy. A significant extract:

And Ronald Reagan believed in the power of truth in the conduct of world affairs. When he saw evil camped across the horizon, he called that evil by its name. There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags, where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the American President had dared to say. There were no doubters in the shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings, where brave men and women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire. And there were no doubters among those who swung hammers at the hated wall as the first and hardest blow had been struck by President Ronald Reagan.

Lech Walesa testifies that the People of Poland "owe him our liberty."

I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians and Ronald Reagan was one of them.

Jim at Smoke on the Water has this photo that says it all.

Lewis Fein at JWR notes:

Reagan's generation liberated the camps; Reagan himself tried to liberate the world. We forget these essential deeds at our own peril.

Michael Novak saw Reagan as one of the "re-Founding Fathers". Heh, his best joke at the Republican 1988 convention involved a remark that he "Knew Thomas Jefferson".

Another good quote from the above article:

One other story that I like was told to Karen and me by Clare Boothe Luce at dinner in our home. "One thing no one has noticed," Mrs. Luce said, "is where the president gets his equanimity in face of criticism, especially from the media. That's an occupational advantage he gained from Hollywood. Early an actor learns the difference between the box office and the critics. If you have box office, it's astonishing how kind you can be to critics."

Posted by ptah at June 7, 2004 08:48 AM