True North

With today being Ronald Reagan's birthday, I thought it would be a perfect time to remind people of his wisdom and the principles that drove his policies.

The Great Communicator's wisdom was uncanny. He had a habit of standing conventional wisdom on its head. He was able to do this because he'd thought the issues through to such an extent that he was the expert, at least on the strategic level. Reagan then picked people that were skilled tacticians to deal with the day-to-day things.

King and I are teaching people the value of Reagan's saying that "Your 80 percent friend is not your 20 percent enemy." The wisdom behind it is that Reagan's conservatism was principled, not dogmatic. He knew how to get people to his side of an issue.

I'll always remember another thing Reagan said during his farewell speech on January 11, 1989:

Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: "We the people." "We the people" tell the government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver, the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the people" tell the government what it is allowed to do. "We the people" are free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do these past eight years.

AMEN TO THAT, MR. PRESIDENT!!!

I can't think of a better time to ask the readers if they'd rather have freedom or regulation. I can't think of a better time to ask readers if they'd 'We The People' telling the government what to do or if they'd rather have an insulated bureaucrat telling them what to do. I can't think of a better time to ask readers if they shouldn't demand that all our leaders consistently preach Reagan's Gospel of liberty, which he rightly states came from the Constitution.

Here's another passage that typified Reagan's thinking:

And in all of that time I won a nickname, “The Great Communicator.” But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that made a difference: It was the content. I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a great nation, from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called it the Reagan revolution. Well, I’ll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.

Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something, the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people’s tax rates, and the people produced more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that had been cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in research and new technology.

A hallmark of Reagan's speeches was that, while he would take credit for crafting the policies, he gave We The People all the credit for the achievements. As George Will wrote about Reagan right before he left office, Reagan had an uncanny knack of knowing when to give America a grandfatherly pat on the back to reassure people that they were on the right track.

Let's also dispel some of the negative myths about Reagan. Democrats at the time often called him an "amiable dunce." That didn't deter Reagan from keep doing what he'd set out to do. It also didn't prevent him from working in a principled way with Tip O'Neill to get things done.

The truth is that Reagan was years ahead of the Washington crowd. He honed his skills giving speeches for decades. He knew policy cold. As he demonstrated in his Farewell Speech, liberty and prosperity was the driving force behind his every policy decision. Washington insiders don't think that way. Their mindset is focused more on how they can control people's lives more.

Reagan sought to deregulate as much as possible. Contrast that with McCain-Feingold, which inhibits the free speech abilities of We The People. Contrast that with how Hillary and like-minded liberals want to take control of the healthcare industry. Bureaucrats by nature are control freaks. Reaganite conservatives by nature think in terms of keeping Americans as free as possible.

Here's what happened as the result of Reagan's wisdom and policymaking:

Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and free speech and turning away from ideologies of the past. For them, the great rediscovery of the 1980s has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.

This isn't meant as a way of saying 'we've done great things, now it's time to rest on our achievements'. Quite the contrary. Freedom and prosperity are one decision, one policy away from inhibiting shackles and shrinking prosperity. Congressional control freaks won't stop thinking of ways to inhibit We The People. It's logical, then, that We The People push back against the inhibitors.

Finally, it's important that Republicans and thoughtful independents understand that there's a strong libertarian, federalist streak in Reagan's conservatism. Reagan, like Barry Goldwater before him, wanted the government closest to the people to make the most decisions because that's when government is most accountable. When government is scrutinized closely, wasteful government spending shrinks dramatically. That, in turn, helps us stay as free as possible.

Twenty years after Reagan's leaving office, his governing principles are as sound today as they were then. That's because they're grounded in eternal truths.

Isn't it time that the GOP returned to the Reaganite formula of shrinking tax burdens and expanding liberty?

Comments are welcome at LFR.