this country is about the common everyday working man an woman
That's not quite the country I remember living in when Ronald Regan was President. The country I remember living in was one in which the government got the heck out of the way so that Ameicans could use their drive, determination, and ambition to achieve GREAT things -not common, everyday things. Reagan talked about things like "will" and "can" and "resolve" and "acheivement" and "presonal responsibility." Broad themes, perhaps, but key results from an even broader one.
That broader theme is liberty. That is what America used to be about. It used to be about freedom. Freedom to pursue happiness, not a promise from a politician that an oppressive government will make you happy. Freedom to succeed, which also came with freedom to fail. That freedom, that liberty, was the key to our strength as a people, and it was the cause that unified us.
The President Regan that I remember believed in the individual American, but he wouldn't use the words "common" to describe him. As an addmittedly impressionable teen, President Regan had me convinced that I could do ANYTHING I set my mind to and achieve ANY goal, provided that I was willing to set it, strive and work to achieve it, be willing to accept responsibility for my failures and shortcomings, be willing to learn from my failures, fix any shortcomings, and move ahead with the same grit and determination that our forefathers had. He didn't promise that I would succeed, but seemed to have faith that I would, if I embraced those principles that the founders of this nation held dear. He didn't promise that I wouldn't fail. He did promise to do everything in his power to get an increasingly oppresive government off my back so I could go out and have a shot at achieving great things.
Regan believed in the individual. Progressives like Pee-Lousy, the Hairy Monster from the Silver State, and the Big O Himself, and others of their ilk, don't believe in the individual. In their minds, you don't need liberty because you are too stupid, common, and everyday to know what to do with it. What you need, poor helpless one, is a government to nanny you from cradle to grave.
It has been a looooooooong three decades since Regan took his oath of office. In that time, many of my fellow Americans seem to have bought into the lie that there is something "common and everyday" about us as a people, and we've bought the lie so completely that we now define ourselves that way. I think if Regan were here today, he'd say something like this.........
"There are some who talk of the common, everyday, working man and woman, as though this mythical figure defines the majority of my fellow Americans. But when I look back upon our collective national history, from the founding of our great nation to the present time, I have to wonder how anyone can believe this most sinister of lies. Ours is a history of free people, posessing the liberty to pursue happiness, in all of its manifold forms -a people with uncommon grit, drive, and determination. Our history proves that we are a nation of people who do not shy away from the difficult thing, who do not look for the easy way, and who do not look to a government to solve all of their problems. Rather, we are a people who take on the diffiuclt thing, finding opportunities and solutions as we do so, not for selfish gain as our detractors around the world might believe, but we take on these challenges because we are Americans, and because we are Americans, there is no challenge too great, nor any obstical that we cannot overcome, simply because we are free to exercise the drive, determination, ambition, and ability that our creator put in each of us. Don't be decieved by those who tell you that these are qualities to be despised, for they are not, nor can they be, if you believe their source to be divinely supernatural in origin. Don't be decieved by those who say that liberty and personal freedoms are anachronisms of a bygonne era that can and should be whittled away piecemeal for the betterment of the so-called "common good." I would submit that we're Americans, and therefore the "common good" isn't good enough for us. We are the last basition of liberty, and this is why we should never lull ourselves into settling for the so-called "common good" or "common" anything -because there is nothing "common" or "ordinary" about us. We are individuals blessed not only with certain inailiable rights, but also individual gifts, talents, and attributes. Only in a free society can those gifts, talents, and attributes blossom forth to bear the fruit of uncommon greatness. Therefore, my fellow Americans, it is up to each and every one of us to remain diligent to defend liberty against all who would seek to usurp it from us. There are many things that make us anything but common and ordinary -as individuals, as a people, and a nation. But the unifying thread, the bedrock upon which our individual and collective capacity for greatness stands, is liberty."
ps.as to what some called her stumping her toe..in her talk at one point ,,she said the truth .. let the powerful media say what they want to.. we don t give a dang what they think of us.we definitly know they not promoting the same america we believe in.. so why worry about what they think..
The progressive media and progressive politicians do seem to work hand in hand to promote an America that is vastly different that what the founders of this nation invisioned, or the America that I remember President Regan speaking of. They appear to be a unified front as they promote a European-style "nanny state" and they do this because they are the self-appointed and self-absorbed elites and "we the people" in their eyes are "common everyday working men and women." A guy like Regan believed that ALL Americians were uniquely blessed with individual gifts, talents, abilities, and aptitudes, which the individual, provided he is not oppresed from doing so by a tryanical government, WOULD use to achieve great, wonderful things. Nothing "common" or "everyday" about that. Those words don't adequately define my fellow Americans any more than the words "average" or "ordinary" do.
Personally, I think we should leave "common and everyday" as defining terms to the progressives and socialists who don't believe in the power of the individual to realize his full potential in a fully free society. Instead, we should define ourselves with more fitting terms that accurately reflect the potential that each one of us has to excell.
-JP
