I remember as a young girl and as a teenager, watching the President speak on TV and feeling a sense of pride and privilege to be able to listen to the leader of our country. I remember feeling that he was a good man who cared about each of us and had the wisdom and sense to do what was necessary. I was proud that he was our President, and even though I was younger and didn't fully understand politics and everything that was happening in the world, I loved to listen to him and felt that his messages were, in part, for me.That president was Ronald Reagan, and I have never felt quite the same about any President since.
This week, we were in Dixon, IL for work and I was thrilled to find out that it was the boyhood hometown of our excellent former President! (A very appropriate place to be as I mourned a little over the choice our country has made on who is to serve next. I have serious concerns about Obama, but I will be praying for him and hoping he proves a lot of us wrong. We'll see.)
Here is the home where he and his family lived. He worked as a lifeguard nearby and during that time saved 77 lives!
This statue is next to the home and depicts President Reagan inspecting some kernels of corn in his hand. (It is Illinois, after all!)
And, for your edification and reading pleasure, here are a few of my favorite Ronald Reagan quotes...
"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
“Coersion, after all, merely captures man. Freedom captivates him.”
“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin. “
"With regard to the freedom of the individual for choice with regard to abortion, there's one individual who's not being considered at all. That's the one who is being aborted. And I've noticed that everybody that is for abortion has already been born.”
“We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide. My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.”
“The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas-a trial of spiritual resolve: the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideals to which we are dedicated.”
“Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.”
“There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism — government. Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.”
“A troubled and afflicted mankind looks to us, pleading for us to keep our rendezvous with destiny; that we will uphold the principles of self-reliance, self-discipline, morality, and, above all, responsible liberty for every individual that we will become that shining city on a hill.”
