Reagan Spoke About America
Sep 7th, 2009 by David Anderson
President Ronald Reagan spoke to the nations school children before he left office in November of 1988.
It was interesting that President Reagan referenced himself less than ten times including a quip about his age (It was two hundred years ago, I remember it well.) and devoted most of his speech to the greatness of America and used that as the spring board to encouraging the students to find the greatness in themselves. This is not a question of right and wrong. It is just an interesting exercise in different styles for a different generation. I do wish that we would once again teach Americanism and American exceptionalism to our children.
And we’re entering one of the most exciting times in history, a time of unlimited possibilities, bounded only by the size of your imagination, the depth of your heart, and the character of your courage. More than two centuries of American history — the contributions of the millions of people who have come before us have been given to us as our birthright. All we can do to earn what we’ve received is to dream large dreams, to live lives of kindness, and to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America.
“I do wish that we would once again teach Americanism and American exceptionalism to our children.”
I’d love that also, however:
David, if Obama did that, your fringe would find something in it over which to demonize him. As far as they are concerned, Obama can do no right, since he is another Hitler, a fascist, a Communist, a Socialist, a racist, you name it, we’ve heard it all from them, and they get a lot of press coverage when they sound off like this.
This is what we hear from Limbaugh, Beck, Malkin, Coulter, and the like, and the rest of you Repubs do not repudiate any of it as far as I can tell.
This is a sad state of affairs, how polarized we’ve become, how cruelly and uncivilly we treat each other these days.
In an atmosphere like this, and thinking about some of the terrible things we have done in the past few decades, speaking of American exceptionalism becomes a very difficult subject to address!
We are not polarized; we are corrupted.
Polarized implies two equal and opposite points of view. We don’t have that.
We have a traditional American center that is trying to solve problems and make progress through history in a typically American way – and then we have the wingnuts, driven by greedhead corporations and investors, who are doing their best to pervert the process with lies and propaganda.
I agree with that!
Of course you do. You note the “center” and then the “right,” ignoring the obvious “left” that is the current administration. It is the same ridiculous “we’re the ‘good’ so deal with it” arrogance that makes pathetic excuses for a guy like Van Jones when you all KNOW that someone w/just even a FRACTION of the background he has — but on the other side — would have been tarred and feathered by not only the likes of you two hypocrites, but the MSM as well.
It’s a dangerous kind of arrogance that believes there aren’t two equal POVs (or more) and that their own is not just the “right” one, but the “morally just” one. And you snicker when people bring up the names of famous authoritarians of the past.
Don’t worry, students will yawn, text and look at the clock and ignore the words.
Thanks for the post, I have been banned from Delaware Liberal. Seems they can’t stand the truth.
Mike Protack
It’s a dangerous kind of arrogance that believes there aren’t two equal POVs
Hube – it is not the POV, it is the dishonesty.
I can accept if you are not on board with a center-left, socially liberal agenda. Honest people can disagree about that, and there are honest ways to do so.
But death panels, indoctrinating children, birth certificates, socialist, authoritarian – all that crap is dishonest. Go ahead and disown a few of those wacko ideas, and there are more where that came from. You can’t disown them fast enough.
I think the only reason the Repubs disowned the birther crap is because they were quite surprised to find it was blowing back on them. They went too far and actually got called out on it. If not they’d still be pushing it.
OK, suppose you leave all the fringe stuff behind and try to form a rational oppostion argument, focusing on spending perhaps. You still can’t do it, because you have never come clean about the failure of Republican economic theories, and you are not willing to acknowledge the hole the Republicans dug for us. Today’s CBO projections are no worse than projections at the beginning of the Reagan or Clinton administrations – and we dealt with them.
It’s not the disagreement – it’s the dishonesty with which Repubs do it. Nearly every right-wing argument I read is pre-debunked before they even utter it – and in many cases they even know they are repeating material that was debunked.
Knowingly repeating a lie for political effect = Propaganda.
If Repubs just came out and said “Screw the poor, every man for himself, if you don’t like it you should go get rich” then I would respect them more.
Obviously my #4 went WAAAY over your head, noman. It’s what I expected, though.