November 2, 2010 – A Time For Choosing
Posted on 16. Aug, 2010 by jason in All Posts, Reagan Quotes, Reagan Revolution, What Would Reagan Do?
Jason Hoyt - National Director Reagan Revolution 2
During most election cycles we can count on at least one candidate declaring “the upcoming election is the most important election of our lifetime”.
No statement could be more accurate for November 2, 2010.
In 1964, Ronald Reagan delivered a stump speech titled A Time for Choosing in support of Barry Goldwater’s presidential campaign. Reagan made the case that We The People are in charge of choosing the fate of our great Republic.
“The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.”
A question I’m known to ask family, friends, neighbors and co-workers is, “what are you going to do about it?”. I hear their frustrations with elected officials politicizing the economy, passing legislation without reading it first all while ignoring the constitution. I ask this question because I want to know what they’re willing to do about it. Are they willing to step outside their comfort zone and daily routine’s to get in the game and save our Republic? Are they willing to research the candidates early this time or at the last minute like year’s past? Will they donate their time walking door-to-door or volunteering at the campaign office making phone calls?
If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. Being upset by what we see on the news is important, but turning that desire into action is key to saving our Republic.
In 1776, Thomas Paine wrote, “”These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country”.
My question to you is this; Are you just a “sunshine patriot”? Or are you actually willing to do something about it?
If you are willing to do something about it, here are a few suggestions:
- Find a local tea party or 9/12 group and begin to network. Those groups are more than likely very intimate with candidates and issues on the November ballot.
- Do not trust endorsement, but research issues and candidates at all levels for yourself. As we work to shrink the size of the federal government and return power to state and local governments, it’s imperative you know who you’re empowering.
- Develop your Facebook network and post articles and stories about politics. Ask questions of your facebook friends to challenge them to think politically. YOU will become the “local expert” they seek advice from closer to the election.
- Sign up with an organization like Americans For Prosperity (AFP) or Freedom Works PAC. These organizations will allow you to make campaign phone calls from home for candidates around the country with national implications.
- Sign up to receive email alerts from ReaganRevolution2.com.
- Get ready for the next most important election of our time on November 6, 2012 by joining Reagan Revolution 2. The PowerThink Publishing team is developing the material we need to focus on education in 2011 that will sharpen our ability to identify the candidates at all levels focused on saving our Republic.
Don’t look for the next Reagan, be the next Reagan.
A Time for Choosing, 1964 – Ronald Reagan
I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.
It’s time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, “We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government.”
This idea — that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power — is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man’s relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man’s age-old dream–the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order — or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, “The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.”
The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.
Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.
Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.
We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….
We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.
We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we cannot have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….
Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.
Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.
If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.
They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits–not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”
You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.
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