Sunday, February 6, 2011

Happy Birthday...

...Ronald Reagan.


I recall sitting on my bunk in Basic Training, filling out my absentee ballot, and thinking "An actor can't be worse than that peanut farmer."

Little did I know...

I had heard of Reagan, of course, but did not know, for example, that while he served in the Air Corps  Hollywood during WWII, that it literally took an act of congress to get the Army to allow him to serve on active duty, due to (IIRC) an eye problem.  Nor that he had originally been commissioned through Purdue's ROTC program in the Horse Cavalry.

Video by Heritage, h/t Big Government.

Blackfive has some thoughts here.

His crime at the time was anUnapologetically American attitude, and it served him, and us, quite well. He stood up to the most existential threat this planet has ever faced, nuclear Armageddon. It is hard to convey to kids who don't even know what the Soviet Union was that there was a serious concern that we could actually destroy the planet. Not in the wimpy Al Goreacle-d way they are whingeing about now, but actually snuff out the human race in a nuclear winter. This was not just the left wing buttheads, it was a legitimate worry for anyone paying attention.

He stood for human rights and dignity and the right of all people to choose their own government and live free from oppression. And when he talked about it you knew he meant it. The Soviet Union was in full on expansionist mode and recruiting satellites and proxies to expand their influence. Our answer was Ronald Reagan and gunboat diplomacy.

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