FROM THE BEST TO THE WORST IN ONE GENERATION

103 years ago on this day, February 6, 2014, Ronald Reagan was born.

I wish I had the capacity to describe adequately what it was like being in Ronald Reagan’s presence. I have met many extraordinary people in my life, from Hollywood’s most famous stars to presidents of countries.  But Ronald Reagan had a magic that was unique to him alone.

There was a depth of character to his charisma that seemed bottomless. There was a solidity of integrity and humanity behind the dazzling charm that was matchless. You loved Ronald Reagan for his ideals and his complete fearlessness in advocating them – and you loved Ronald Reagan for the man, the human being, he was.

Ronald Reagan was the single greatest American – American, not just American president – of the 20th century. More than any other, he embodied the moral ideal personified by Aristotle as the man of megalopsychia, the "great-souled man."

The "great-souled man" had a character of such undiluted integrity, inspiration, and achievement in the real world that his life expressed, for Aristotle, the kalon, moral beauty. Ronald Reagan was a morally beautiful human being.

On March 30, 1961, as a spokesman for General Electric and well before he entered politics, he gave a speech to the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce, which he entitled "Encroaching Control."  In it, he delivered one of his most famous quotes:

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. The only way they can inherit the freedom we have known is if we fight for it, protect it, defend it and then hand it to them with the well thought lessons of how they in their lifetime must do the same. And if you and I don’t do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.

It is one thing to read these words.  It is another to listen to him actually say them:

The power of his voice makes you cry, doesn’t it?  Because his words have so devastatingly come true. 

When Ronald Reagan became president in January 1981, America was at the bottom of the barrel after Vietnam, Watergate, and Jimmy Carter.  Defeatism and declinism dominated American thinking. Stagflation, the Rust Belt, 21 percent interest rates, 27 percent inflation, 11 percent unemployment and stock prices falling through the basement.

All this while the Soviets were winning the Cold War and were literally at our doorstep.  In January 1981, the largest Soviet Embassy on earth was in Mexico City, and there were more KGB agents in Manhattan than there were CIA agents in the entire world.

Reagan changed all that.  He didn’t waste a picosecond whining that America’s woes were "Carter’s fault."  He set about fixing them.  He saved the US economy and saved world freedom simultaneously.  He crushed inflation and launched the Reagan Boom that lasted 20 years.  He won the Cold War so decisively that the Soviet Union ceased to exist.

Ronald Reagan fought for, protected, defended, and handed America’s precious freedom to the next generation – and poof! Just like that, one generation after Reagan, Americans are letting their freedom go extinct. 

To compare Ronald Reagan to Zero is obscene.  We have gone from the best to the worst in one generation.

America was truly blessed to have a man such as Ronald Reagan come to her rescue and to raise her from despairing depths to the pinnacle of historic success as the world’s sole uncontested superpower with the most thriving economy the world had ever known.  Now America is truly cursed by a man of micropsychia, a small-souled man of moral ugliness. 

Today, America is losing another Cold War, a Cold Civil War between the Two Americas.  And Ronald Reagan is not here to rescue us.  What do we do? What advice would he have if he could speak to us?  WWRRD??

We can only imagine, of course, for he is gone and will never be here again.  If he were and I could ask him, my first question would be, "Mr. President, your prediction that freedom could be lost in one generation has come true.  Can it be regained in one generation?"

I’m listening hard, and the words I am hearing are, "Yes, although it will be far more difficult to regain it than to maintain or sustain it.  You’ll need a strategy.  I suggest you consider the one that worked against the Soviets."

President Reagan encapsulated that strategy in four simple words:  "We win, they lose."  No giving peace a chance, no appeasement, no apologies, no getting along with them, no containment.  He realized that was impossible with Marxist Fascists who believed all that matters is, as Lenin put it, "Kto-Kovo?" – "Who-Whom?", who conquers whom.

The key to what the press ended up calling "The Reagan Doctrine" that won the Cold War was: 1) identifying the Soviets’ most critical weaknesses and most easily exploitable vulnerabilities; 2) determining the best ways to maximize those weaknesses and vulnerabilities; 3) implementing those ways relentlessly.

Thus, what we need to regain our freedom is a Reagan Doctrine for America.  To win the Cold Civil War between the Two Americas, take the three parts to the Reagan Doctrine’s key above, and substitute "Democrats" for "Soviets," while including useful idiots like Vichy Republicans and fellow travelers like the Enemedia.

We could put it more concisely and pithily.  The cabal of Reaganauts in the White House never used the term "Reagan Doctrine."  The term was invented by Charles Krauthammer when he was among the first to figure out what we were up to.  We simply called it "FTC" from a toast we had whenever we had a beer together, meaning "Foil the Commies," or something like that.

Thus we could simply call our regaining freedom project:  From FTC to FDC! 

How to do this is beyond the scope of this essay.  Suffice it to say, we have a target-rich environment, starting with the meltdown of ZeroCare.  It invalidates the entire Regressive-Liberal agenda of ever-increasing government control over our lives.

Let this be the start of an on-going discussion of how best to implement From FTC to FDC.  For right now, on this day, let us all take the time to reflect on the achievements of Ronald Reagan, on how much you and all Americans owe him a debt of thankfulness and gratitude.

Celebrating Ronald Reagan, from 2011, is a collection of videos – from his 1953 appearance on What’s My Line, to the 1964 Time for Choosing speech that launched him politically, his shutting down a heckler in 1980, his 1981 Inaugural Address, the 1983 Evil Empire speech, the epic "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall," to his Farewell Address in 1989.

He was the best we’ve ever had since Washington and Jefferson.  We can have an America that lives up to him once again, once we commit to "We win, they lose."