I too got the opportunity to see Reagan in person - in my case it was a 1976 primary season GOP rally at the Fargo Civic Center - which means I was something like fifteen. Reagan was there in person; Ford condescended to call in. Yet the proto-RINOs at the '76 GOP convention installed Ford as the '76 "nominee" anyway, and the rest, as they say... Imagine Carter's Keynesian catastrophe never having happened; his veritable midwifing of modern-day Islamofascist terrorism never having happened - but instead a Reagan that was four years younger (crucial at that general phase of human aging,) taking his baby-steps in the direction of Laissez Faire without having to do so from the bottom of Carter's Keynesian pit. The whole world would've been a vastly better place, but... the American people decided they could afford to vote for a "novelty President" with a folksy grin and who was considered "cool." Talk about history repeating itself.

I pity us when the Generation Next-ers take over.

President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher were an awesome team when the word allies was still in the lexicon. How I miss them! Liberty and Capitalism never had better heroes.

Theanswer is that greatest generation got old and gave way to the dumbest generation.

We need to pass on his legacy; our kids won't understand the evils he faced (like big govt here, to true communism in the rest of the world) unless we tell the story

and you are right !!

it's their same distorted view of "wealth redistribution"
or "income redistribution" -- if the pie gets bigger, on
the other hand, everyone's slice can grow (reduced
prices, shared benefits from business successes)
even though their relative size diminishes! -- j

To change the world all Reagan did was turn toward free market economics, a rational foreign policy, and have the courage to stick to his guns. He did it with a great ability to communicate, and a wonderful sense of humor. The beauty of his humor was that it was based on reality and not slapstick or denigrating circumstances. It's the courage part that even the most rational of politicians are having trouble with.

Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America. http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Ronald...

I had the honor in about 1964, as president of the University of Arizona Conservative Club (we’d be called Libertarians today), to sit at the head table with Ronald Reagan at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Tucson. Afterwards, six of us went with him to his hotel, and we talked until the sun came up. I disagreed regarding several issues with him then (and he did discuss them, not fight). When he was president a decade and a half later, he held to the same positions we discussed that evening --- good and bad. I think he acted upon what he believed and did not change to whatever direction the wind blew. On the bad side, I don’t think he was fully in control. His underlings attacked civilly and criminally the Libertarian faction who supported Reagan. His strong point was more free market economics, not individual liberty per se.

They've been taking over for at least a century. Reagan was at best a pause, but government growth continued uninterrupted during his time in office. The progressives win because most people who ostensibly oppose them accept their premises. See Rand.

Well said! But then the progressives took over. How did that happen? Di they just do a better job of salesmanship?

If you make the pie bigger, then each piece takes a smaller percentage, without a fiscal cut. It the magic of growth. Growth covers all sins in a business just as a rising tide raises all ships. It is the key element progressive bean counters neglect in their forecasts. They take last year's pie and cut it into more pieces to help more people, and call that growth.

In a dynamic market, the size of the economic pie can be changed in the formula. I am arguing that the longest peacetime economic expansion in history has diminished the relative size of the pieces.

Reagan talked a great game, but did any federal agency or program actually get its budget cut on his watch? I don't remember any.

I was recently in Southern California and visited the Reagan Library in Simi Valley. If you are ever in the area I can't recommend it too highly. There are great exhibits about every aspect of his career, and the actual Air Force One that he and six other presidents used. I watched the videotape of his speech concerning the Iran-Contra affair. He made a straightforward admission of what had happened, took full responsibility, said he had made mistakes, pledged to take action against those responsible, and then vowed to move on. What a contrast to our current weasel in chief!
For me, perhaps the most rewarding part of the visit were the countless reminders of Reagan's irrepressible optimism. As the article notes, he took office at a time when the economy was a wreck and the nation was mired in a deep "malaise," (Jimmy Carter's term). Reagan knew that if the government got out of the way and people were allowed to pursue their ambitions and dreams, the economy would take care of itself. He did his best to get the government out of the way (he had to work around a Democratic congress) and lo and behold, the economy took care of itself!
Reagan also knew that communism was a dead end and would collapse of its own weight. He stood up to the Soviets, refused to back away from the Strategic Defense Initiative (and even offered to share it with them), challenged Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall (there was a tape of that speech at the Reagan library--fabulous), and lo and behold, the Soviet Union crumbled!
Reagan made mistakes and I didn't agree with him on everything, but I think he was the 20th Century's best president. The man had not only substance but style, and the many "beautiful people" and intelligensia of the time who ridiculed him as an idiot now stand revealed, in the light of history, as the true idiots. The Reagan library is a fitting tribute to the man.

They don't make actors like that very much anymore... I sure miss the days when we had a President that wasn't perfect, but I could live with and didn't make me want to retch...