President Ronald Reagan was born February 6, 1911 and would have been 99 years old today. After reading through numerous wonderful quotes from him, we chose one that encourages us to do the right thing in our time. We are grateful for President Ronald Reagan and we pray that God will bless us with many more godly leaders who strive to keep us free.
“Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith.”
President Ronald Reagan 1911-2004
“Compromise, (No)! That’s what has happened to us all down the line– and that’s the very cause of our woes. If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time.” Jesse helms 1921-2008 writing on compromise in politics.
This stinks no matter what you call it. Congress’ health care takeover will tell private health insurance plans they must cover abortion but they call the killing of unborn babies different names. It’s been called “choice”; “right to privacy” “women’s rights issue” ”reproductive health care”; “in-clinic procedures” and an amendment approved by Senate could now classify abortion as “preventative health services” for women. Planned Parenthood calls the RU486 / abortion pill “medication” . Really? A pill that aborts a baby is called medication? Worldnetweb defines medication as something that treats or prevents or alleviates the symptoms of a disease. What really is the disease here? The baby?? Or is it the evil that seeks to destroy life, a deliberate disobedience to the will of God.
Iowa’s Right to Life Resolution – “We believe human life is a sacred gift from our Creator and is an inalienable right as outlined in the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence whereby its value cannot be decided by a legislative body or a judicial branch. This right is innately valuable from conception to natural death. This includes the unborn, the elderly, the terminally or chronically ill, and the mentally or physically handicapped. No human life should ever be diminished, or arbitrarily taken. Therefore, the government and its people must restore this right to life which was intended to protect all its citizens, including the child in the womb.”
“This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
Written on the walls of the rotunda at Iowa’s state capitol, these words come from President Abraham Lincoln’s address at Gettysburg. It is a beautiful rotunda and these are beautiful words. Remembering the men who fought and died at Gettysburg for freedom is sobering, the sacrifices made that we would have a government of the people, by the people and for the people must not be taken lightly -not by politicians and not by we the people. Let ’s live free.
Taken from “Great Preaching on Patriotism” edited by Curtis Hutson page 212
Abraham Lincoln left us guidelines to help us in maintaining the framework of democracy in this nation of free men:
l. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
3. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
4. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
5. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
6. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
7. You cannot further brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
8. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
9. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves.
An open letter titled To all Innocent Fifth Columnists was written by Ayn Rand around 1941 encouraging conservative intellections to form a national organization advocating individualism. A Fifth Columnists is defined as a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group, such as a nation, from within, to the aid of an external enemy. The origination of the phrase came from the Spanish Civil War in 1936 when a General reported that his four columns of forces entering the city would be supported by a fifth column of his supporters inside the city.
The following is an excerpt from the letter which you can read in its entirety at the link posted below. As you read this you could substitute today’s language such as “socialism”, “nationalization of health care”, “racists” etc. and see the message is as relevant today as it was then. As she says names don’t matter, only the basic principle and there is no middle ground. Read the full letter and you will see the heading of this post makes sense and you will have ‘food for thought’ on the question it raises.
“First and above all: what is Totalitarianism? We all hear so much about it, but we don’t understand it. What is the most important point, the base, the whole heart of both Communism and Nazism? It is not the “dictatorship of the proletariat,” nor the nationalization of private property, nor the supremacy of the “Aryan” race, nor anti-Semitism. These things are secondary symptoms, surface details, the effects and not the cause. What is the primary cause, common to both Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany, and all other dictators, past, present, and future? One idea — and one only: That the State is superior to the individual. That the Collective holds all rights and the individual has none.
Stop here. This is the crucial point. What you think of this will determine whether you are a mental Fifth Columnist or not. This is the point which allows no compromise. You must choose one or the other. There is no middle. Either you believe that each individual man has value, dignity and certain inalienable rights which cannot be sacrificed for any cause, for any purpose, for any collective, for any number of other men whatsoever. Or else you believe that a number of men — it doesn’t matter what you call it: a collective, a class, a race or a State — holds all rights, and any individual man can be sacrificed if some collective good — it doesn’t matter what you call it: better distribution of wealth, racial purity or the Millennium — demands it. Don’t fool yourself. Be honest about this. Names don’t matter. Only the basic principle matters, and there is no middle choice. Either man has individual, inalienable rights — or he hasn’t.
Your intentions don’t count. If you are willing to believe that men should be deprived of all rights for a good cause — you are a Totalitarian. Don’t forget, Stalin and Hitler sincerely believe that their causes are good. Stalin thinks that he is helping the downtrodden, and Hitler thinks that he is serving his country as a patriot. They are good causes, both of them, aren’t they? Then what creates the horrors of Russia and of Germany? What is destroying all civilization? Just this one idea — that to a good cause everything can be sacrificed; that individual men have no rights which must be respected; that what one person believes to be good can be put over on the others by force.”
http://fare.tunes.org/liberty/library/taifc.html
As our president bears no resemblance to a king so we shall see the Senate has no similitude to nobles. First, not being hereditary, their collective knowledge, wisdom, and virtue are not precarious. For by these qualities alone are they to obtain their offices, and they will have none of the peculiar qualities and vices of those men who possess power merely because their father held it before them.
I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.
Frederick Douglass
Quiz #1 - “A constitution founded on these principles introduces knowledge among the people, and inspires them with a conscious dignity becoming freemen; a general emulation takes place, which causes good humor, sociability, good manners, and good morals to be general. That elevation of sentiment inspired by such a government, makes the common people brave and enterprising. That ambition which is inspired by it makes them sober, industrious, and frugal.”
Who said that?
#3 – “I think we can say that the Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day, and the framers had that same blind spot…The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of more basic issues of political and economic justice in this society….The Constitution is a chart of negative liberties, says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf. And that hasn’t shifted.”
Who said that?
A clue – B O
#3- Barack Obama in a radio interview in 2001
Note September 4. Source of Obama’s quote is from Senator Jim DeMint’s book “Saving Freedom” . A video has been added on video page.
Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.