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FROM THE PHONE BOOTH: The Smallest Space in  Hollywood

	FINEFROCK

Reagan’s Reagan:
Ronnie’s Eternal Verities
by Steve Finefrock - Hollywood Forum [scriptwriter] 5/1/08

Michael Reagan has given us a grand gift, in a small book collection of his father’s quotes as conservative spokesman, candidate, governor and president. The Common Sense of an Uncommon Man is organized by broad subject titles, but let them cascade over you in a Forum summary of the best and the brightest to adapt to our current, perilous times. With little sidebar observations on occasion, of course:

You can’t be for big government, big taxes, and big bureaucracy and still be for the little guy.
 
A friend of mine was asked to a costume ball a short time ago. He slapped some egg on his face and went as a liberal economist. [Don’t you smell rotten, old tired egg every time Paul Krugman yaps in the NY Times?]

Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but Democrats believe every day is April 15. [And he would have something to say about refusal to wear a flag in the lapel as proof of an alternate kind of patriotism.]

We desire peace. But peace is a goal, not a policy. Lasting peace is what we hope for at the end of our journey. It doesn’t describe the steps we must take nor the paths we should follow to reach that goal.
 
Bureaucrats favor cutting red tape – lengthwise.
 
No government at any level and for any price can afford the police necessary to assure our safety and our freedom unless the overwhelming majority of us are guided by an inner personal code of morality.
 
Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations, and benefits.”
 
We don’t celebrate dependence day on the Fourth of July. We celebrate Independence Day.

Man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.  [from his 1989 farewell address]

Let us be frank. Evil still stalks the planet. Its ideology may be nothing more than bloodlust; no program more complex than economic plunder or military aggrandizement. But it is evil all the same. And wherever there are forces that would destroy the human spirit and diminish human potential, they must be recognized, and they must be countered. [speaking to Oxford U.: Did they get it?]

His view of the difference between our Constitution and others:
 
All those other constitutions are documents that say, “We, the government, allow the people the following rights,” and our Constitution says, “We, the People, allow the government the following privileges and rights.”

We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we may always be free.  [at Pointe du Hoc, per D-Day]

The most fundamental paradox is that, if we’re never to use force, we must be prepared to use and to use it successfully. [Unless liberals ‘command’ our armed forces, or yield them to international command.]

History teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.

How do you tell a communist? Well, it’s someone who read Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell and anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin. [Perhaps true for Islamofascism – read their rhetoric and tracts lately?]

You know, Senator Kennedy was at a dinner just recently, the ninetieth birthday party for former governor and ambassador Averell Harriman. Teddy Kennedy said that Averell’s age was only half as old as Ronald Reagan’s ideas. And you know, he’s absolutely right. The Constitution is almost two hundred years old, and that’s where I get my ideas. [Since, it’s become over 200 years old – when’s the last time you read it?]

Two Soviets … were talking… and one of them asked, “What’s the difference between the Soviet Constitution and the United States Constitution?” And the other one said, “That’s easy. The Soviet Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of gathering. The American Constitution guarantees freedom after speech and freedom after gathering.” [And PC has risen to new heights in the intervening years, inside these very borders.]

Tax rates are prices – prices for working, saving and investing. And when you raise the price of those productive activities, you get less of them and more activity in the underground economy, tax shelters, and leisure pursuits. You in small business understand that you can’t force people to buy merchandise that isn’t selling by raising your price. But too many in Washington and across the country will believe that we can raise more revenue from the economy by making it more expensive to work, save, and invest in the economy. We can’t repeal human nature.


Over and over they told us they are no the party they were. They kept telling us with straight faces that they’re for family values, they’re for a strong America, they’re for less intrusive government. And they call me an actor.

From “The Speech” on behalf of Goldwater’s 1964 candidacy; still so very true – sad, unendingly true and saddening:
 
The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so.  

Politics is just like show business You need a big opening. Then you coast for a while. Then you need a big finish. [spoken in California in 1966 – also very true still today, as conservatives consider bringing their production values to branding conservatism with our skills.]

I have learned one of the most important rules in politics is poise – which means looking like an owl after you have behaved like a jackass.

Free enterprise has done more to reduce poverty than all the government programs dreamed up by Democrats.  [spoken while California governor; wonder of Arnold grasps this four decades later?]

No government every voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!
 
Either you will control your government, or government will control you.
 
If you want to make sure crime doesn’t pay, let the government run it.

And from his first inaugural, a core of what America is, and should be forever into infinity and beyond [he was a bit of a Buzz Lightyear, after all]:

We have every right to dream heroic dreams.

There’s a great deal more, for your additional perusal, and maybe purchase for gifting this coming July 4th, or Memorial Day, or any day suitable for giving what Reagan gave his nation.
 
These chosen nuggets are the most suitable for remembering in this current battle, even if the left would like to pretend Reagan was for another time. As he said about the Constitution – it’s older than he, and still younger than the ancient addled minds of totalitarians who preceded its composition in that hot Philadelphia Summer of 1787 [another title worthy of examining; talk about soap-opera!].
 
The timing is suitable, as commie-lover’s favorite holiday approaches – MAY DAY – and so many forget that bit o’ history which liberals only faintly helped bring to ‘an end’ with the fall of the Wall. ExileStreet

copyright 2008 Steve Finefrock

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