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We need another Ronald Reagan

CSA_TX

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Found this article written by Ronald Reagon and wanted to share. We need a President like him again. Long post but worth it.

Ronald Reagan: The Gun Owner's Champion


In our September 1975 issue, Ronald Reagan, then two-time Governer of California, penned this column. A man of conviction, Ronaldus Magnus was true to these words before and during his eight-year presidency.


There are tales of robbery victims that are shot down in cold blood or executed "gangland style." There are stories of deranged parents killing their children or deranged children killing their parents. There are reports of snipers. And now and then the headlines blurt out that an assassin has struck again, killing a prominent official or citizen. All of these stories involve the use of guns, or seem to. As a result, there is growing clamor to outlaw guns, to ban guns, to confiscate guns in the name of public safety and public good.

These demands come from people genuinely concerned about rising crime rates, persons such as Sheriff Peter Pitchess of Los Angeles, who says gun control is an idea whose time has come. They come from people who see the outlawing of guns as a way of outlawing violence. And they come from those who see confiscation of weapons as one way of keeping the people under control.


Now I yield to no one in my concern about crime, and especially crimes of violence. As governor of California for eight years, I struggled daily with that problem. I appointed judges who, to the best of my information, would be tough on criminals. We approved legislation to make it more difficult for persons with records of crime or instability to purchase firearms legally. We worked to bring about swift and certain punishment for persons guilty of crimes of violence.

We fought hard to reinstate the death sentence after our state Supreme Court outlawed it, and after the U.S. Supreme Court followed suit, we won.

Now, however, the California court that sought eagerly to be the first to outlaw the death penalty is dragging its heels as it waits for the U.S. Court to rule. The Chief Justice in California, whom I appointed with such high hopes, in this regard has disappointed many of us who looked to him to help again make our streets, our shops and our homes safe. I find it difficult to understand persons like President Ford's new Attorney General, Edward H. Levi. Attorney General Levi would ban guns in areas with high rates of crime.

Mr. Levi is confused. He thinks somehow that banning guns keeps them out of the hands of criminals. New Yorkers who suffer under the Sullivan Act know better, they know that the Sullivan Act makes law-abiding citizens sitting ducks for criminals who have no qualms about violating it in the process of killing and robbing and burglarizing. Despite this, Mr. Levi apparently thinks that criminals will be willing to give up their guns if he makes carrying them against the law. What naivete!

Mightn't it be better in those areas of high crime to arm the homeowner and the shopkeeper, teach him how to use his weapons and put the word out to the underworld that it is not longer totally safe to rob and murder?

Our nation was built and civilized by men and women who used guns in self-defense and in pursuit of peace. One wonders indeed, if the rising crime rate, isn't due as much as anything to the criminal's instinctive knowledge that the average victim no longer has means of self-protection.

No one knows how many crimes are committed because the criminal knows he has a soft touch. No one knows how many stores have been let alone because the criminals knew it was guarded by a man with a gun or manned by a proprietor who knew how to use a gun.

In my opinion, proposals to outlaw or confiscate guns are simply unrealistic panacea. We are never going to prevent murder; we are never going to eliminate crime; we are never going to end violent action by the criminals and the crazies--with or without guns.

True, guns are a means for committing murder and other crimes. But they are not an essential means. The Los Angeles Slasher of last winter killed nine men without using a gun. People kill and rob with knives and clubs. Yet we have not talked about outlawing them. Poisons are easy to come by for the silent killer.

The automobile is the greatest peacetime killer in history. There is no talk of banning the auto. With the auto we have cracked down on drunken drivers and on careless drivers. We need also to crack down on people who use guns carelessly or with criminal intent.

I believe criminals who use guns in the commission of a crime, or who carry guns, should be given mandatory sentences with no opportunity for parole. That would put the burden where it belongs--on the criminal, not on the law abiding citizen.

Let's not kid ourselves about what the purpose of prison should be: It should be to remove criminals from circulation so that they cannot prey upon society. Punishment for deterrent purposes, also plays a part. Rehabilitation, as many experts, including California Attorney General Evelle Younger, have discovered, is not a very good reason for imprisoning people. People don't rehabilitate very well in prison.

There is an old saying that slaves remain slaves while free men set themselves free. It is true with rehabilitation, also. Criminals rehabilitate themselves, there is little you and I can do about it. But back to the purpose of this article which, hopefully, is to make the case against gun control.

The starting point must be the Constitution, because, above all, we are a nation of laws and the foundation for our laws, or lack of same, is the Constitution.

It is amazing to me how so many people pay lip service to the Constitution, yet set out to twist and distort it when it stands in the way of things they think ought to be done or laws they believe ought to be passed. It is also amazing to me how often our courts do the same thing.

The Second Amendment is clear, or ought to be. It appears to leave little, if any, leeway for the gun control advocate. It reads: "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

There are those who say that, since we have no militia, the amendment no longer applies; they would just ignore it. Others say nuclear weapons have made the right to keep and bear arms irrelevant, since arms are of little use against weapons of such terrible destructive power. Both arguments are specious.

We may not have a well-regulated militia, but it does not necessarily follow that we should not be prepared to have one. The day could easily come when we need one.

The nuclear weapon argument is even more silly. Many wars have been fought since World War II and no nuclear bomb has been dropped. We have no assurance that the next world war will be a nuclear war. But, regardless of any possible merit they might have, both these arguments beg the question, which is: Shall the people have a right to keep and bear arms?

There is little doubt that the founding fathers thought they should have this right, and for a very specific reason: They distrusted government. All of the first 10 amendments make that clear. Each of them specifies an area where government cannot impose itself on the individual or where the individual must be protected from government.

The second amendment gives the individual citizen a means of protection against the despotism of the state. Look what it refers to: "The security of a free state." The word "free" should be underlined because that is what they are talking about and that is what the Constitution is about--a free nation and a free people, where the rights of the individual are pre-eminent. The founding fathers had seen, as the Declaration of Independence tells us, what a despotic government can do to its own people. Indeed, every American should read the Declaration of Independence before he reads the Constitution, and he will see that the Constitution aims at preventing a recurrence of the way George III's government treated the colonies.

The declaration states this plainly: "But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government and to provide new Guards for their future security."

There is no question that the first 10 amendments are a part of those "new guards" for their future security. And one of the most basic of those guards is the right to keep and bear arms.

There are those in America today who have come to depend absolutely on government for their security. And when government fails they seek to rectify that failure in the form of granting government more power. So, as government has failed to control crime and violence with the means given it by the Constitution, they seek to give it more power at the expense of the Constitution. But in doing so, in their willingness to give up their arms in the name of safety, they are really giving up their protection from what has always been the chief source of despotism--government.

Lord Acton said power corrupts. Surely then, if this is true, the more power we give the government the more corrupt it will become. And if we give it the power to confiscate our arms we also give up the ultimate means to combat that corrupt power. In doing so we can only assure that we will eventually be totally subject to it. When dictators come to power, the first thing they do is take away the people's weapons. It makes it so much easier for the secret police to operate, it makes it so much easier to force the will of the ruler upon the ruled.

Now I believe our nation's leaders are good and well-meaning people. I do not believe that they have any desire to impose a dictatorship upon us. But this does not mean that such will always be the case. A nation rent internally, as ours has been in recent years, is always ripe for a "man on a white horse." A deterrent to that man, or to any man seeking unlawful power, is the knowledge that those who oppose him are not helpless.

The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed. When the British forgot that they got a revolution. And, as a result, we Americans got a Constitution; a Constitution that, as those who wrote it were determined, would keep men free. If we give up part of that Constitution we give up part of our freedom and increase the chance that we will lose it all.

I am not ready to take that risk. I believe that the right of the citizen to keep and bear arms must not be infringed if liberty in America is to survive.

Found at http://www.gunsandammomag.com/classics/reagan_1007/
 

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1 Reagan+ 2 Bush = Enough

No question Ronald Reagan was a great President, as BDH eloquently put it: He was one of the finest President we've had. But the equation balances like that:
1 Reagan + 2 Bush = Enough
If you add another Reagan it would be like this:
2 Reagan + 2 Bush = Disaster
What we would need to balance this equation is another Carter and most definitely 2 more Clinton. One with Hillary and one without.
 
You should be in the Liberal group not Independent's. :p
 
Re: 1 Reagan+ 2 Bush = Enough

The Liberal Puke said:
No question Ronald Reagan was a great President, as BDH eloquently put it: He was one of the finest President we've had. But the equation balances like that:
1 Reagan + 2 Bush = Enough
If you add another Reagan it would be like this:
2 Reagan + 2 Bush = Disaster
What we would need to balance this equation is another Carter and most definitely 2 more Clinton. One with Hillary and one without.

I've been to France. 1 Democrat for every 2 Republicans is more than enough. Hmm, I may even say 1 Democrat for every 3-4 Republicans. :p

The best President will be one that splits the party lines. Clinton was actually pretty center.
 
Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us mile long gas lines, double digit interest rates and inflation, a dandy recession bordering on a depression, screwing our ally the Shah of Iran and allowing the Islamic terrorists to take over the country and hold our people hostage for over a year, (thus enabling a foothold of the islamo-fascist we are currently fighting), tried negotiating and kissing ass to appease the communists and allowing the commies to get a foothold in Central America, squashed the B-1 bomber and the neutron bomb, depleted our military, and for the first time in history gave us a so-called `misery index'.

Eight years of Reagan and four years of Bush1 gave us tax cuts from 70+ percent to 28 percent, won the cold war, got our hostages back from Iran, brought down the Berlin wall, enabled the best and longest running economic boom since WWII, routed communism from South America, reined in double digit interest rates and inflation (thanks Jimmy Carter), built up our military, and restored America's pride and economic and military prowess.

Eight years of Clinton gave us the most morally corrupt leadership in history, a huge economic bubble based on cooked books and fake profits, sold secret and top secret technology to the chinese and North Koreans so now they not only have nuclear capability but also the ability to deliver them within 100 meters of target, sold pardons to numerous convicted felons, had several dozen friends and associates die `mysteriously', cooked over 80 men, women and children in the Waco invasion, merged the military and police to the point where the enemy was the American people, totally blew off the terrorist attacks and covered up several others simply because he wanted to avoid confrontation and was busy using his balls for something other than defending the country, turned down getting Osama Bin Laden from Sudan, bombed Belgrade and enabled the Albanians to rape, burn and plunder Bosnia, bugged out the air support for Mogidishu, turned his back on the Hutu and Tutsi slaughter in Africa, sold out Israel by embracing and recognizing that murderous thug Arafat and screwing them with that worthless Oslo accord, taught our kids that blow jobs aren't sex and lying is ok as long as its for a good reason, went to educational social engineering instead of teaching our kids reading, writing, arithmetic, and history; annihilated our military capability; sold us out to the homosexual and feminist agenda; tried to socialize our top notch medical system. I'll stop now but the list goes on.

Bush II inherited the Clinton recession, reaped the tragic consequences of Clinton inneptness regarding the islamo-facist terrorist, rallied the country after September 11, went after Osama Bin Ladin where he is rotting in a cave somewhere, then went after Saddam Hussein where he is now living much better now than when he was eating dog-food out of the can and living in a spider hole, freed 80 million people in Afganistan and Iraq from torturous, despotic dictatorships, cut taxes from Clintons largest tax hike in history (sorry, I left that one out of the previous paragraph), and spurred the economy back to recovery.

The way it looks to me, I don't think we can take much more of the demoncraps without going futher down the squat-hole. Lord help us if that weasel Kerry steals the election. So get out the vote!
 
I agree we need to keep the Demons out of the whitehouse, we are just now starting to get everything lined out now that Bush has been in power for ~4yrs.

They say it is going to be a close race, but from the people I have talked to about it, my count is about 4:1 for Bush. IF scarry kerry wins you better start to rebuild the Y2K stock pile as its going to get ugly real quick.
A 1000 rounds and a good rifle will not be enough.......
 
bdh, you have the gift. The gift of telling it like it is. You are a writer man, and I cannot wait to see some of your editorials again.

:applaud
 
1 Reagan + 2 Bush = Not Nearly Enough
1 Reagan + 2 Bush + 1 Kerry = Nightmare

We do not need more Demoncrats at this time in the Whitehouse, unless you like paying more taxes, would rather not have the right to own guns, and would have America sustain more terrorist attacks because we have neither the intelligence capability nor the testicular fortitude to fight against these nut sacks who would kill as many Americans as they can simply because they are Americans. :soap

May God Bless and keep the spirit of President Ronald Wilson Reagan. The Reaganesque quality we need most is a renewed sense of nationalism, patriotism, and being glad to be an American, instead of the current state of self loathing and badmouthing of our own country, mosty by LIBERALS!!!

IF IT'S SO G@#D@#% BAD, THEN GET THE F&^$ OUT AND LEAVE ME THE H$#@ ALONE!!
 
Thanks for the history lesson BDH, I would like to give you a hand but Vauge already gave you 2 (you're probably exhausted right now). Instead I'll give a you a thumb up...
I'm tired of people coming up here yelling and cursing about Liberals this, Liberals that. Stop the all the whinings :boohoo:
This a well balanced and continuous situation:
1.-- Republican elected
a) mess up the economy
b) the country go to war against powerless so-called enemies

2.-- Democrate elected
a) economy turnaround in the + direction
b) peace with the world and good foreign policies
 
One could argue that the executive branch is not solely responsible for everything doing well or going to hell in a handbasket. The legislative branch has a strong hand in hosing everything as well.
 
Iran Contra Scandal.

Enough said.

I hope this country never gets another president like Regan again.

Horrible administration - horrible person.
 
Iran Contra Scandal.

Enough Said.

I hope this great country never has another president like Regan again.

Horrible administration - horrible person.

God will judge him on the murders/executions of women and children he supported.
 
Reagan was the most loved President in modern times, and THAT is why the liberal pukes hate him.
 
Yes, robin, I do enjoy paying taxes becasue I know they are supporting my government in taking actions I see as necessary to take. And incidently, I have been paying taxes for five years on about 15,000 of income yearly.
 
1:Reagan was a good guy, even if you didnt like his politics.
2:He was good with gun control, that I can say
3: Did people forget about te Iran-Contra Scandal WTF mate
4: HOW THE HELL DID HE BEAT GEORGE WASHINGTON, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, MARTIN LUTHER KING, AND ABRHAM LINCOLN FOR GREATEST AMERICAN!!!!!!! but hell, thats neo conservatism for you, reagan was the end all be all.......................
 
Te Great Communicator said: Ketchup is a vegetable! - and the Congress said that it was good.

- The New "Reformed" Ronald Reagan Bible and Gospel according to Karl Rove
 
The Great Communicator said: Ketchup is a vegetable.

And the Congress said that it was good.
 
bdh said:
Four years of Jimmy Carter gave us mile long gas lines, double digit interest rates and inflation, a dandy recession bordering on a depression, screwing our ally the Shah of Iran and allowing the Islamic terrorists to take over the country and hold our people hostage for over a year, (thus enabling a foothold of the islamo-fascist we are currently fighting), tried negotiating and kissing ass to appease the communists and allowing the commies to get a foothold in Central America, squashed the B-1 bomber and the neutron bomb, depleted our military, and for the first time in history gave us a so-called `misery index'.

Eight years of Reagan and four years of Bush1 gave us tax cuts from 70+ percent to 28 percent, won the cold war, got our hostages back from Iran, brought down the Berlin wall, enabled the best and longest running economic boom since WWII, routed communism from South America, reined in double digit interest rates and inflation (thanks Jimmy Carter), built up our military, and restored America's pride and economic and military prowess.

Eight years of Clinton gave us the most morally corrupt leadership in history, a huge economic bubble based on cooked books and fake profits, sold secret and top secret technology to the chinese and North Koreans so now they not only have nuclear capability but also the ability to deliver them within 100 meters of target, sold pardons to numerous convicted felons, had several dozen friends and associates die `mysteriously', cooked over 80 men, women and children in the Waco invasion, merged the military and police to the point where the enemy was the American people, totally blew off the terrorist attacks and covered up several others simply because he wanted to avoid confrontation and was busy using his balls for something other than defending the country, turned down getting Osama Bin Laden from Sudan, bombed Belgrade and enabled the Albanians to rape, burn and plunder Bosnia, bugged out the air support for Mogidishu, turned his back on the Hutu and Tutsi slaughter in Africa, sold out Israel by embracing and recognizing that murderous thug Arafat and screwing them with that worthless Oslo accord, taught our kids that blow jobs aren't sex and lying is ok as long as its for a good reason, went to educational social engineering instead of teaching our kids reading, writing, arithmetic, and history; annihilated our military capability; sold us out to the homosexual and feminist agenda; tried to socialize our top notch medical system. I'll stop now but the list goes on.

Bush II inherited the Clinton recession, reaped the tragic consequences of Clinton inneptness regarding the islamo-facist terrorist, rallied the country after September 11, went after Osama Bin Ladin where he is rotting in a cave somewhere, then went after Saddam Hussein where he is now living much better now than when he was eating dog-food out of the can and living in a spider hole, freed 80 million people in Afganistan and Iraq from torturous, despotic dictatorships, cut taxes from Clintons largest tax hike in history (sorry, I left that one out of the previous paragraph), and spurred the economy back to recovery.

The way it looks to me, I don't think we can take much more of the demoncraps without going futher down the squat-hole. Lord help us if that weasel Kerry steals the election. So get out the vote!

Yet another wonderful example of the cognitive disconnect with reality so prevalent on the right.

1. Carter is a truly honest and good man. In fact, he may well be one of the most honest and well intentioned men to hold the presidency. However, he really wasn’t that good of a president.

2. The huge recession you were talking about where unemployment jumped to 12% happened in 1982. Reagan took office in January of 1981. So that recession occurred while Reagan was in office, not Carter. Moreover, inflation rates originally skyrocked during the Nixon years. Nixon in response instituted price controls (the wrong thing to do). Inflation remained high throughout the 70s. We did not have high interest rates on accident, but rather they were high in order to curb inflation. A lot of supply side “economists” try to credit the drop in interest rates during the Reagan years to Reagan’s tax cuts. However, they ignore a basic economic principle: You can only curb inflation by curbing demand. The Fed Chairman in 1982 shot up interest rates in response to Reagan’s tax cuts. This had the effect of dropping anchor on economic growth and plunged us into our greatest Recession since the Great Depression that year. This resulted in a huge drop in demand, which resulted in a huge drop in the inflation rate, which resulted in interest rates being dropped because there was no longer a need for high interest rates to combat high inflation.

3. Right wingers also seem to forget that Reagan never proposed a single budget with less than 11% growth over the previous year (Clinton never proposed more than 3% growth). Reagan more than doubled the fiscal size of the Federal Government while in office. His tax cuts never brought about increased revenue either. Just one year after his Tax Cuts, Reagan signed into law the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act in 1982 which was the largest Tax Increase in history at the time. The budget would not be balanced until the tax increases of the Bush years, and the upper bracket tax increase during the Clinton years.

4. Bush Sr. presided over the second deepest recession since the Great Depression.

5. The Clinton Administration brought about the longest period of peace and prosperity in our nations history.

Enough Said.
 
"The Fed Chairman in 1982 shot up interest rates in response to Reagan’s tax cuts. This had the effect of dropping anchor on economic growth and plunged us into our greatest Recession since the Great Depression that year. "

Evidently you weren't around during the Eisenhower years. (Or however he spelled it)
 
Clinton "...brought about the longest peace and prosperity"?! You gotta be kidding me! That is like saying as long as you let the bully beat you up each week whch is what Clinton did, it is peace and prosperity till you decide to defend yourself!
 
ShamMol said:
Yes, robin, I do enjoy paying taxes becasue I know they are supporting my government in taking actions I see as necessary to take. And incidently, I have been paying taxes for five years on about 15,000 of income yearly.

I got news for you my friend, if you make 15K and your paying income tax you better get a new tax preparer because you should not be paying a dime.......
 
SouthernDemocrat said:
Yet another wonderful example of the cognitive disconnect with reality so prevalent on the right.

1. Carter is a truly honest and good man. In fact, he may well be one of the most honest and well intentioned men to hold the presidency. However, he really wasn’t that good of a president.

2. The huge recession you were talking about where unemployment jumped to 12% happened in 1982. Reagan took office in January of 1981. So that recession occurred while Reagan was in office, not Carter. Moreover, inflation rates originally skyrocked during the Nixon years. Nixon in response instituted price controls (the wrong thing to do). Inflation remained high throughout the 70s. We did not have high interest rates on accident, but rather they were high in order to curb inflation. A lot of supply side “economists” try to credit the drop in interest rates during the Reagan years to Reagan’s tax cuts. However, they ignore a basic economic principle: You can only curb inflation by curbing demand. The Fed Chairman in 1982 shot up interest rates in response to Reagan’s tax cuts. This had the effect of dropping anchor on economic growth and plunged us into our greatest Recession since the Great Depression that year. This resulted in a huge drop in demand, which resulted in a huge drop in the inflation rate, which resulted in interest rates being dropped because there was no longer a need for high interest rates to combat high inflation.

3. Right wingers also seem to forget that Reagan never proposed a single budget with less than 11% growth over the previous year (Clinton never proposed more than 3% growth). Reagan more than doubled the fiscal size of the Federal Government while in office. His tax cuts never brought about increased revenue either. Just one year after his Tax Cuts, Reagan signed into law the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act in 1982 which was the largest Tax Increase in history at the time. The budget would not be balanced until the tax increases of the Bush years, and the upper bracket tax increase during the Clinton years.

4. Bush Sr. presided over the second deepest recession since the Great Depression.

5. The Clinton Administration brought about the longest period of peace and prosperity in our nations history.

Enough Said.

Carter was a nice man but one of the worse presidents this country ever had..........
 
Navy Pride said:
I got news for you my friend, if you make 15K and your paying income tax you better get a new tax preparer because you should not be paying a dime.......
Combine that with my stocks and other investiments and I am paying about 1k a year in taxes. Not much, I know, but still, something I am willing to do. I have been investing in stocks since I was about 12 so my returns each year are now sizable.
 
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