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| Source:Reagan Foundation- Right-wing radio talk show host Dennis Prager, at the Reagan Foundation. |
For more information on the ongoing works of President Reagan's Foundation, please visit:Reagan Foundation."
From the Reagan Foundation
Dennis Prager, a right-wing radio talk show host, is right about one thing. The right-wing and the Republican Party has forgotten about Ronald Reagan and what Reagan conservatism actually is and what it means. President Reagan left the White House in January, 1989 just twenty-two years ago. And today probably wouldn't recognize the Republican Party today. I'm not a mind-reader, but I'm just basing that on where he was politically when he left the White House. And where the GOP is today, remember what Ron Reagan said.
"Government isn't the solution, but the problem." But yet you had two Republican presidential candidates in 2011 come out in favor of constitutional amendments to ban pornography and same-sex marriage. Actually looking to expand Federal Governmental power in Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum. Rick Santorum, saying "why do we need fifty marriage laws? We should just have one standard." Which is the argument that today's Progressives make when they are talking about more Federal power in education. "Education is a national Issue, we don't need fifty different standards when it comes to education."
I'm a Liberal Democrat, so obviously I don't agree with President Reagan on everything. And I'm not an expert on President Reagan either. But his message was pretty clear and simple. "Big government is the problem and we don't have enough individual liberty." His message wasn't just about economic freedom or religious freedom or political freedom. But his message was about individual freedom. That people should be free to live their own lives. Religious and Neoconservatives today, who call President Reagan a Liberal, except on economic and foreign policy, take a different approach to politics.
"That individual freedom is a threat to national security." Or as Michelle Bachmann said, "same-sex marriage is the number one threat to our national security". If people have a lot of individual freedom, they may do things that people don't like and wouldn't do. And would become threats to our national security, according to today's Neoconservatives. Or as Rick Santorum put it, "our national morality." The Reagan Foundation and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, is what Republicans and people who claim be Conservatives today should be looking at and studying. Ron Reagan considered himself a Libertarian as late of 1975. He was elected President in 1980. Libertarians people that Religious and Neoconservatives consider to be immoral or Un-American. Because they believe in freedom and are individualist, not collectivist.
