The Speech

 

“THE SPEECH”

I Peter 3.15 admonishes “… be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear…” Of course this text includes deeper meanings, but they are words rightfully applied in many contexts. I venture here to apply the Apostle’s admonition to the world and words of political philosophy.

On October 27, 1964 I watched TV as a man gave a speech entitled “A Time to Choose”. It would ever after be called simply “The Speech”. The Speech became the bed rock of my political philosophy, and influenced how one callow youth would vote the next fifty years.

The man was Ronald Reagan, the speech was given during the 1964 presidential campaign on behalf of the first person for whom I would vote for President of the United States, Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. In every Presidential election through 2000 I would vote Republican. When I was able I participated in local Republican club, aided and supported the Republican Party, even acted as a judge in elections.

To me the tenets of compassionate conservative government are overall still the best way to run a country. But, I have become greatly discouraged by the lust for prestige, power, and profit blatantly portrayed by politicians. And discouaged by their betrayal to those tenets for which the Republican Party once honorably stood.

With all due apologies, and with some minor concessions to time, historical change, and need for brevity, following is the from The Speech [any editing mine].

RONALD REAGAN: “A TIME FOR CHOOSING”, AUGUST 1964

“I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

“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.

“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.'

“The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

“Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

“Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always 'against', never 'for' anything.

“We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments....

“We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world...

“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? ...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.

“If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States...

“They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that 'the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals.' And he said, 'There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.'

“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”