on September 16, 2013 at 1:55 am said:
In part because a more extended version of Reagan’s 1964 stump speech called “A Time for Choosing” that included lines you may recall, “Let me suggest there is no left and right. There’s only an up or down…”
Reagan updated it and delivered the revision circa 1983, but it seems to have been lost. And that, IMHO, is a terrible disservice to the country.
As best as I can recall, Mr. Reagan likened the accepted Marxist political spectrum of left and right to the ups and downs of a scaffold.
"The Left would gain control, and they’d pile up programs on their side of the platform. The foundation beneath the platform would begin to sink from the weight of their efforts. This resulted in the platform being tilted noticeably. It made the voters feel uncomfortable. So the voters would turn to the Right to straighten things out.
Well the right might try to prop up the left side a bit, and refill the foundation, but in doing so, they’d dig a hole under their side of the platform next. Those who gain power always have interests who want something back — usually in the form of legislation that favors them or taxes their competitors — for their support. Thus the weight of these efforts and favors repaid cause the platform to tip to the right this time. That sinking feeling leaves the voters uncomfortable again.
So the voters would then put the Left back into power. And the Left would begin to fill in the hole under the right, but pile up more programs on their side and drive their side of the platform even deeper into the foundation of America’s liberties.
And so it would go on, back and forth, Left and Right, Left then Right. Pretty soon the citizens of this great nation would find themselves in a pit of despair; a pit dug by the machinations of those who built up the oppressive weight of government. Government has been built up incrementally, one law after another, ruling upon ruling, practice becoming entrenched policy. And it was all done under the guise of representing a left or a right side, but both headed in one direction — into the pit of tyranny. All those vested interests would insist it stay that way. Worse, as they’d get more demanding they’d cloak it with fairness. They were owed all that they’d “earned” for their efforts to gain “their people” power in the past.
At some point the vast majority of Americans will insist on climbing out of the hole dug for them by this political machine — that single minded and ruthless incremental see-saw of power-seeking achieved by eating away at the foundation of our liberties. Taxes and regulations and busybodyness that is in no way justified in a nation dedicated to individual freedom.
Americans were passed a birthright containing the fresh air of freedom. It is what our Founders had envisioned, and it is what our fathers fought to keep. And it’s pretty much still been available to most Americans for around 200 years. If we do not stop the digging soon, somewhere along the way, Americans will demand to be let out of this pit. May God bless them then as He has in the past."
It seems to me that the TEA party movement is the living example of what he was suggesting. It is too bad that its members think so lowly of their efforts that they keep insisting on trying to reform the GOP instead of dumping it before it buries them.
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