From Reagan's Berlin Wall Speech: Message For Today's GOP

[Terri]

By Star Parker
June 16, 2008

For conservatives and Republicans who are wondering what in the world happened to their party, we should recall June 12, 1987.

That day, 21 years ago, President Ronald Reagan stood before the wall dividing East and West Berlin and directed his famous appeal to the leader of the then Soviet Union, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."

The rest, as they say, is history. Two and half years later, the wall was down and a new chapter begun.

It's always worth recalling Reagan's courageous act and words of that time. But we particularly should consider it now in light of today's Republican conundrums.

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[jack virtus]

there are those in the GOP who want to either forget or diminsh the role of the most important and beloved GOP figure since Abraham Lincoln. These elitists want to irradicate the conservative base instead of proudly embracing President Reagans conservative legacy. I say let the Rino's leave the party not conservatives!

[bcorp]

America is in an era of "I" orientation, not "we". We have a youth that is only focused on themselves, for the most part. With the Obama pronouncements of the "free(?)" benefits the youth has become entranced with this. Reality will only come after the, I believe, the failure of his agenda. Then what? Oh we will hear all of the excuses and blame, even if the Dems. are in complete control and failure happens, it will be blamed on the GOP. That's just what they do as Libs., they do NOT take responsibility fro their actions. I see this every day at my business with the youth, they mess up, damage something, all type of excuses are expressed, blame shifted, inanimate objects are blamed for their actions. The best one I hear is "That's not why I came to work here." Wow, I'm the boss, I ask them to do something, and I'm told that's not what they want to do. And they are getting away with this because our liberal laws protect this type of behavior. Who is running the businesses in our country, those that started them or those who work for them. The rights of the workers have become more important than those of the created the job. And now Mr. Obama wants to give them more power. Heck, I'm closing mine, let these people find other jobs to destroy.

[Texanna]

Interestingly, Mitt Romney used this same example of the controversy over the speech in his keynote address at the RPT convention.

People no longer get their political ideals by thinking about them. They get them from television and the internet. Thinking people analyze what they hear and judge a candidate based on how that person's ideas match the ideals. That isn't happening now, and the definitions of Republican and Democrat have gotten squishy.

I was wearing a button that said, "Laissez faire" at the convention. Only ONE person knew what it meant. I knew what it meant when I was a liberal!

I think it's a result of lack on the part of party leadership to educate the populace, and the tendency to run campaigns based on issues rather than on philosophies. While a party may support certain things within the scope of that party's philosophy, platform planks aren't what a party is all about. But in order to draw more people in, planks have supplanted philosophy.

[dcstark]

The Republican Party has taken a beating the past few years because they have, overall, become a clone of the Democratic Party of old:

• big and continually expanding government ruling more and more of our lives every day
• more and more redistribution of money from wage earners and savers to the sick, lame, and lazy
• EARMARKS (formerly called pork barrel, and utterly anathema to real Conservatives) out the wazoo
• constituent service to garner votes rather than service to the nation as a whole

When the Republican Party returns to its truly conservative roots, they will retake the reins of Government. If they continue to act like Democrats, they will slide farther into oblivion.

[FlaJim]

It's instructive to note that when the GOP were swept into power in the congressional elections of 94, in part because of the Contract With America, one of the planks many candidates ran on was to self-limit their tenures. A few years later, when some were facing that deadline, they demurred, saying that "there is still so much to do."

Well, they did it by falling into the same corrupting mess that had characterized the Dems for over 40 years. Gone was the idealism and ideals upon which they'd been raised to lofty posts and comfortable perqs.

It's not so much a wall as an entrenchment that now needs to be torn down. Some of these guys apparently didn't get the memo back in 94 that we're not content with country club Republicans conducting politics as usual. It's nauseating to hear Republicans describing anti-Americans like Ted Kennedy, Hussein, or Robert Byrd as "my good friends." Jesse Helms had a successful career in the Senate while demonizing the left.

[schillerbjr]

The GOP of today would be "WISE" to heed Reagan's Belin Wall Speech.



It was quite "TELLING"!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!

[elmerck1]

Those were the good ole days. I only wish we could go back to them, knowing what we know now.