Honoring Ronald Reagan

[1Cie GevGn]

I would like to take this opportunity to thank all the people who worked hard to make sure that one great man got the honor that he deserved.

Before you all declare me absolutely crazy, I just want to say that I was deeply moved by the service, I stayed up till 5 in the morning now. Putting aside all politics and differences for once, I want to pay my respects to Ronald Reagan, his wife and relatives.

But I would also like to express my feelings of awe and immense thanks to the people of the armed services, law enforcement and others. I can't think of any other way to say it, so I'll say it here. You have my sincere respect and gratitude for making this day one that will live on forever in the memory of many.

Thank you.

[Fintin]

ROCK ON FOREVER RONNY

[1Cie GevGn]

Well, that's also a way to put it

I guess

[Dennis G]

http://www.ronaldreaganmemorial.com/

Ronald Reagan an American Lion

[usa320]

I admit, i started to tear up when Amazing grace was played on the bagpipes, followed by taps and the Hornets in Missing Man formation.

definately one of the most beautiful services i have EVER seen.

Honor and dignity through the entire ceremony, a great way to truly honor the great things this man did in his life.

[EvanL]

ANybody happen to see Brian Mulroneys speach?

[Ichhabe]

ANybody happen to see Brian Mulroneys speach?

Technically you hear it. :D

And Ronald. Even if I wanted to kick you in the nut sack back in the 80's, I've learned that you actually was a great guy. Hvil i Fred.

[Dennis G]

Ronald Reagan: The Enduring Presidency
by Vincent Fiore
11 June 2004

In the case of America’s 40th president, history has already handed down its verdict, and it is decidedly one of greatness.


In 1993, one-time Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan wrote a letter to the former president. Having become frustrated with the revisionist history that swirled around the president’s historical standing, Noonan asked him if he was worried about his future standing with historians.

Reagan replied, “I’m more than willing to submit my actions to the judgment of time. Let history decide. It usually does.”

On June 5, 2004, the nation observed the passing of Ronald Reagan into the annuals of history. But history has a way of being defined and re-defined with the passage of time. Our judgment of it proceeds accordingly. A decision or consensus upon a person or event may well take years to arrive at, and yet still be hotly debated. In the case of America’s 40th president, history has already handed down its verdict, and it is decidedly one of greatness.

Born February 6, 1911, Ronald Wilson Reagan started life in a four-room rental apartment in Tampico, Illinois. When Reagan ascended the Presidency at the age of sixty-nine in 1981, the United States was living in its worst period of an economic morass since the days of the Great Depression. That was the bad news. The really bad news was America’s standing as a geopolitical power, or lack thereof.

At home, America had lost or abstained from whatever sound economic governance that had propelled it during the post-World War II years to unprecedented growth and personal wealth. Reagan had to deal with the legacy of President Jimmy Carter, who had inflicted upon the nation such bellweather numbers as a 13.5% inflation rate, home mortgage rates at 20%, and a median price of home ownership jumping to 63,000 dollars, up from 23,000 in 1973. Gold was trading at an astounding 800.00 dollars an ounce, a sign of consternation in America’s monetary policy and economic disorder.

Abroad, the picture was even graver. America had taken a back seat to the Soviet Union, which could openly state and back up its premiere superpower status over the U.S. In 1978, Nicaragua was taken over by the Marxist Sandinista guerrillas, leading the Washington Post to dub Nicaragua a “second” Cuba. President Carter signed the SALT II treaty with the Soviets, metastasizing the decline of American might and will. On Christmas Day in 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. One month earlier, the American embassy was besieged by Iranian “students,” taking 67 Americans hostage.

Toward the end of 1979, 84% of the electorate told The Gallup Poll that the country was on the “wrong track.” In San Francisco, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the infamous “Doomsday Clock” from 9 minutes to midnight to 7, midnight being the onset of nuclear Armageddon.

This then, was the age of Ronald Reagan.

From his first moments as president, Reagan informed the country the challenges it faced as a whole. He criticized government as an “elite group” with a self-imposed superiority over a government for, by, and of the people. Reagan tapped into the indomitable yet dormant conviction of the American belief in self, and an aspiration to great deeds. Reagan came into office on the platform of three basic tenets: defeating Communism, cutting taxes, and shrinking the size of government. While he will be celebrated for his leadership and strength in these areas, history will also show one of his greatest achievements to be his revitalization of the American spirit, and the cultivation of American pride.

Reagan’s “peace through strength” doctrine was his defining belief that a strong military at home and abroad was essential to the U.S. and its allies to prevent Soviet dominance and unchecked aggression throughout the world. Critics will remark how the Soviet Empire was dying of its own weight, and remark that Reagan was just in the right place at the right moment in history. To say this would omit the fact that the Soviet Union spent as much as 30% of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on the military, an immense number when dealing with a much smaller economy. By contrast, Reagan devoted approximately 6% of the GDP to defense.

Reagan disavowed the “Keynesian” doctrine of economics, thereby creating the largest expansion of the economy in the history of the U.S. By lowering marginal tax rates, Reagan sanctified the basic idea of letting Americans keep what they earn. And though these same critics will point to the federal deficit as a barometer of the Reagan years, to do so is to ignore the doubling of federal tax revenues from 517 billion dollars in 1980 to over one trillion by 1990.


How does one remember this giant of a man, this “Great Communicator” of our age, within the confines of a page? What can I say that has not already been said, or likely will be? Simply put, I cannot. For trying to encapsulate the epic life of Ronald Reagan is the equivalent of enumerating the very stars above that witnessed his totality in life. His life represents a cycle of heroic triumphs; from a Hollywood sound stage, to the world’s grandest stage, the U.S. Presidency.

So instead, I thought I would let him say it to you. These words are from Reagan’s “farewell” speech, delivered on January 11, 1989 from the Oval Office.


I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.

And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.

We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for 8 years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.

And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.

Thank you, Mr. President. The country owes you a debt that cannot be repaid. But then again, listening to you as we did, you would probably say it was the American people who bore the load of your eight transformational years in office, while you simply stood aside and let America be America again. A nation weeps today in desolate sadness, but also in abundant gratitude for ever having had you to guide us.



President Ronald Wilson Reagan: February 11, 1911- June 5, 2004.

[stuntman]

usa320 wrote

I admit, i started to tear up when Amazing grace was played on the bagpipes, followed by taps and the Hornets in Missing Man formation
Yes plus I found the part when Madam Thatcher first bowed her head and then in a sweet jester of a little girl with polished demeanor she kirtsi (spelling) I swear that made me sob like a punished child God bless her!

WEEP EM MAN IT'S PRESIDENT RONALD WILSON REAGAN!http://images.google.com/images?q=tbn:ABLa2SoDLO0J:www.reagan.utexas.edu/photos/large/e13-3.gif

[afrographX]

http://img51.photobucket.com/albums/v157/afrographX/reagan.jpg

:D

[Ratamacue]

Wrong thread, fvckhead. Post it somewhere else.

[stuntman]

Excuse me but afrographX don't be a ****ing pig a great man has died but maybe or maybe not those things may be true (notice I am not saying your fallacious) but have some G*d dam respect!
Don't apologize for your protest but apologize for your disrespect..

[talib_killa34]

Not only that, but someone's father and husband recently passed away.
Take time to think of their grief right now.

Add to that with the agony of having a loved one stricken with advanced Alzheimer's Disease for so long and we should not be so quick to laugh.

It is a sad time but he is at peace.

God bless you Ronald Wilson Reagan.

RIP