Ronald Wilson Reagan is an American hero. Or at least he would be, if America could have heroes anymore.
Gone are the days when the American citizen turned soldier who bravely engages the world’s enemies can conquer them with honor. Of the child born into poverty who triumphs over adversity with hard work, ingenuity and old fashioned American industry. Of the thinker who happens upon great technological advances in his basement workshop and shares them not only with his own countrymen but with the entire world.
If ever we were truly seen as the defenders of the free world, the scions of progress, the great minds of any time, we are no more.
Even, sadly, in our own eyes.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born in 1911; three years before WWI, a generation before the atomic bomb was invented and well before every action of an American was characterized by the evils that it is perceived to perpetuate around the globe. Perhaps it was the innocent times in which he first experienced the world’s oldest existing democracy that so deeply instilled in him a belief in the goodness of man.
And through the challenging decades during which he confirmed his commitment to the United States, Reagan steadfastly held to the belief that his countrymen, when given the freedom to choose what was right, would. It is the core he principle he believed had made his country stronger, more influential and more prosperous than any before it.
And so he believed government should let its people keep their money, if only because the government had not yet figured out how to use the cash better than the citizen who earned it.
“Government always finds a use for the money it gets and that use rarely benefits the taxpayer who provided it or anyone else for that matter.”
He believed that faced with any threat, any obstacle, any act of aggression no matter how great, freedom would prevail.
“Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.”
And though he did not believe in fostering a welfare state that began and ended with perpetual handouts, he did believe in giving every American the opportunity to provide for themselves.
“I think the best possible social program is a job.”
He believed in believing in things.
Like god.
“May all of you as Americans never forget your heroic origins, never fail to seek divine guidance and never lose your natural, God-given optimism.”
Like family.
“All great change in America begins at the dinner table.”
Like democracy.
“We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the Earth.”
Born in a humble apartment above a savings and loan in rural Illinois, he believed that a scrawny kid with big ears and bigger dreams could become a Hollywood movie star. He believed that even a debilitatingly nearsighted young patriot could serve his country in a time of war. He believed that the same man could one day become the President of the United States.
And he was right.
Reagan acted in 77 major motion pictures as well as countless WWII film reels and served as President of the Screen Actor Guild for 8 terms. He was twice elected Governor of California and on his third run for the White House in 1980, he won the electoral votes of a whopping 44 states to become the 40th President of the United States. His second term as President was won in another historic landslide victory amid impressive approval ratings.
Despite the common contemporary criticisms of Reagan’s policies and politics, he ushered in an era of unprecedented prosperity for America in the midst of a drastic shift in our economic and social structure, the Cold War and an increasingly hostile opposition party.
Though many insisted his efforts would be futile, Reagan battled the ever more pervasive drug culture in hopes of freeing Americas cities from the cycle of violence and crime that permissive narcotics policies had allowed to take hold of our urban centers.
He invested in education, not by giving the failing public system a blank check and consequently further entanglement with the Federal bureaucracy as in administrations past, but by providing student loans to young people with the drive to pursue a college degree.
He encouraged democracy here and around the world and though he may not be credited with more than making faulty friendships today, there are at least a dozen Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Far East nations who have Reagan to thank for his dedication to their freedoms.
Perhaps there was a time when an American President who survived a nearly successful attempt on his life, perpetual and ever more personal demonization by his opponents and an increasingly bias media through two terms - all with dignity and a quiet sense of duty while dedicatedly pursuing the highly criticized policies that many today argue have provided us with a safer, stronger and more affluent country than ever before - would be seen as a hero but those times appear to be long gone.
If ever they existed at all.