RE: Reflecting on the System

Steve Brenneis responds to Robert W. Mitchell, Jr.:

Robert, I've never known you to be so maudlin. Having a bad day?

You guys on the left just never seem to get it when it comes to Reagan. Here's a hint: He wasn't called the great communicator for no reason. Reagan didn't invent these ideas. He didn't even represent them in a completely purist manner. What Reagan did was to remind us that there was another, better idea some 200 years ago. He gave us a break during the long, inevitable slide into Socialism and the equally inevitable collapse of our society as a result. He gave the libertarian-conservatives among us a reminder that ideas are stronger than politics, sometimes.
As I repeatedly remind people, a statesman is someone who is able to lead, not just those who applaud him, but those who disagree with him as well. Reagan was a statesman of the first order, right up there with Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Lincoln and yes, even Roosevelt.

When someone like Andy quotes Reagan, the words that come out are not built around principles Reagan invented. The words are elucidations of fundamental principles of the great American experiment. That is what so enrages the left about Reagan and his memory. After forty years of progressive movement toward the totalitarian socialist ideal, nearly without opposition, Reagan appeared and very simply demolished the left's house of cards using nothing more than language. Too bad we couldn't have kept him around for a few more years. He might have finished the job.

As for Rush Limbaugh and others behind him, I say no, they are not Reagan's heirs. Limbaugh is simply a mouthpiece for the right-hand half of the GOP. Many, many others follow that suit in more and less self-aggrandizing fashion. Reagan's heirs are the people like Charles Krauthammer who learned that the left cannot stand exposure and that a rational argument trumps the emotion and fluff handed out by the left every time. Reagan's heirs are people like Andy who keep his words alive so they can be used again, just like Reagan used them, to remind people that there was and could be again, a better way.