Thoughts on Ronald Reagan

When Ronald Reagan was elected president in November of 1980, I was on a U.S. Navy Frigate cruising off the coast of Iran. Though I did not vote for or against him, he was my favoured candidate. President Carter was very unpopular in the military, and moral was not good under him. Reagan changed all that; with Reagan the military recovered much of its esprit de corp.

Reagan was, as is every man, flawed, but he must be credited with toppling the Soviet Union. He saw that they could not compete with the West if the U.S. retooled its military and its economy. So he urged the U.S. forward militarily and economically. The Soviet system collapsed when it could not keep up.

Reagan deserves much credit for accomplishing the demise of the Soviet system and placing it in the ash heap of history. (Pope John Paul II too deserves credit for the Soviet demise).

Reagan had a number of failure, the biggest is the Marine barracks debacle in Beirut, where a suicide Muslim terrorist killed himself and over 200 American Marines. We turned tail and left immediately (we should not have been there to start with) and we have been reaping the consequences for that decision up until this very day.

Reagan was flawed, though he did some great things. Even with his flaws, he was a far better choice than Carter or Mondale. Reagan was viewed as an extreme right wing nut by much of the media. He was not, but when so much of the media is so very left wing, anything right of centre looks extreme to them.

During Reagan’s presidency I left the Democratic Party and registered as a Republican. Like millions of other Southern Democrats, I could no longer remain in a Democratic party that had moved so far to the left on social issues. Economics, though important to me, or not as important to me as are social and states rights issues.

[Note--Today, I am not real comfortable registered as a Republican (I’m not a neo-con). The Republicans look upon Evangelical Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics as their private whore. They don’t want to be seen in public with us, but when they call on election day, they want us to show up and vote for them.]

Reagan was certainly the best and most important president in my life time. He lifted America from the morass that she had fallen into following Vietnam, Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis, and Carters presidency. For that he deserves much credit. He also gave the teetering Soviet Union just enough of a push to shatter it to pieces. He will be remembered for these good things.

In memoriam,
Kenith