I wrote speeches for Ronald Reagan in the last year of his presidency, and what I discovered, reading through the archives of his addresses, was that he was never hortatory. He never told his audience what they “must” do; he did not even say what “we must do.” It was not his place to do so; he worked for the American people, he was not their boss.
Time for the Great Gazoogle™:
Address to the Nation on National Security By President Ronald Reagan, March 23, 1983
The calls for cutting back the defense budget come in nice, simple arithmetic. They're the same kind of talk that led the democracies to neglect their defenses in the 1930's and invited the tragedy of World War II. We must not let that grim chapter of history repeat itself through apathy or neglect.
This is why I'm speaking to you tonight--to urge you to tell your Senators and Congressmen that you know we must continue to restore our military strength. If we stop in midstream, we will send a signal of decline, of lessened will, to friends and adversaries alike. Free people must voluntarily, through open debate and democratic means, meet the challenge that totalitarians pose by compulsion. It's up to us, in our time, to choose and choose wisely between the hard but necessary task of preserving peace and freedom and the temptation to ignore our duty and blindly hope for the best while the enemies of freedom grow stronger day by day.
...
Now, thus far tonight I've shared with you my thoughts on the problems of national security we must face together.
Ronald Reagan Second Inaugural Address Monday, January 21, 1985
My fellow citizens, our Nation is poised for greatness. We must do what we know is right and do it with all our might. Let history say of us, "These were golden years—when the American Revolution was reborn, when freedom gained new life, when America reached for her best."
...
We must simplify our tax system, make it more fair, and bring the rates down for all who work and earn. We must think anew and move with a new boldness, so every American who seeks work can find work; so the least among us shall have an equal chance to achieve the greatest things—to be heroes who heal our sick, feed the hungry, protect peace among nations, and leave this world a better place.
And on and on and on. For more examples, just Google. Why can't this guy put in at least 30 seconds of work before spewing his bilge?
Note: Great Gazoogle is a registered trademark of Sadly, No.
2 comments:
kei & yuri send:
TKK darling that was actually our fault. Just as the son of Lucianne Moneymountain farmed out research for his book on Liberal Fascism to anonymous internet personalities through the National review blog "the Corner," his research into Reagan also relied on the e-kindness of strangers, but we got distracted by an article about the surviving art of the First Nations of the Pacific Northwest via Plep.
did you remember the exclamation point?
Sadly, No!
but you make a wicked point, he was counting on the memory hole, and that hole just doesn't work the way it used to.
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