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| Brief · February 7, 2011 The Foundation"His integrity was most pure, his justice the most inflexible I have ever known, no motives of interest or consanguinity, of friendship or hatred, being able to bias his decision. He was indeed, in every sense of the words, a wise, a good, and a great man." --Thomas Jefferson on George Washington The Gipper"I never thought of myself as a great man, just a man committed to great ideas. I've always believed that individuals should take priority over the state. History has taught me that this is what sets America apart -- not to remake the world in our image, but to inspire people everywhere with a sense of their own boundless possibilities. There's no question I am an idealist, which is another way of saying I am an American." --Ronald Reagan Opinion in Brief"It's been more than six years since our nation bid farewell to Ronald Reagan, born 100 years ago [yesterday]. Yet at times it seems as though he never left. ... It's worth reminding ourselves as we mark the centennial of Reagan's birth what he accomplished -- and how. It's important to do this in part because much of what passes for praise of Reagan is veiled criticism. Reagan is hailed, for example, as a great communicator. And with good reason; few politicians could match his rhetorical skill and his ability to articulate great themes that resonated with the American people. But that's where many on the Left stop. What they really seek to emulate is not his policies or his agenda. They hope that, by studying his methods, a little of his 'magic' will rub off on the liberal policies that have proven such a hard sell over the last two years. Dress the liberal agenda in 'Reaganesque' terms, and the electorate is yours, right? What condescending nonsense. It wasn't just Reagan's ability to communicate that endeared him to millions of Americans. It was the fact that he was articulating their most deeply cherished beliefs. It went well beyond the optimistic outlook -- which, although welcome, is something any president can attempt. It was because he spoke in direct terms that avoided the usual 'buzzword' approach we get from Washington. And he used that approach to say what many Americans thought: Taxes are too high -- let's cut them. Inflation is too high -- let's tame it. The Cold War can be won, not managed, and the world made safer for everybody -- let's do it. The fable of the Left (the hard Left, anyway -- many others are coming around) is that this was all smoke and mirrors. But the facts tell a different story." --Heritage Foundation president Ed Feulner Political Futures"The only good conservative is a dead conservative. That, in a nutshell, describes the age-old tradition of liberals suddenly discovering that once-reviled conservatives were OK after all. It's just we-the-living who are hateful ogres, troglodytes and moperers. Over the last decade or so, as the giants of the founding generation of modern American conservatism have died, each has been rehabilitated into a gentleman-statesman of a bygone era of conservative decency and open-mindedness. ... But it's Ronald Reagan who really stands out. As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of his birth, the Gipper is enjoying yet another status upgrade among liberals. Barack Obama took a Reagan biography with him on his vacation. A slew of liberals and mainstream journalists (but I repeat myself) complimented Obama's State of the Union address as 'Reaganesque.' Time magazine recently featured the cover story 'Why Obama (Hearts) Reagan.' ... Now, on one hand, there's something wonderful about the overflowing of love for Reagan. When presidents leave office or die, their partisan affiliation fades and, for the great ones, eventually withers away. Reagan was a truly great president, one of the greatest according to even liberal historians like the late John Patrick Diggins. As you can tell from the gnashing of teeth and rending of cloth from the far left, the lionization of Reagan is a great triumph for the right, and conservatives should welcome more of it. On the other hand, what is not welcome is an almost Soviet airbrushing of the past to serve liberalism's current agenda." --columnist Jonah Goldberg
Insight"Everybody is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone says anything back, that is an outrage." --Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965) Liberty"Recognizing the vulnerability of relying on the Commerce Clause alone [to justify ObamaCare], the Obama administration in the Florida case shifted its emphasis to the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution. That clause empowers Congress to enact 'all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution' its enumerated powers. As the Supreme Court has repeatedly explained, the Necessary and Proper Clause does not expand the scope of Congress's enumerated powers. Instead, it gives Congress the ability to select among various means of exercising them. ... The Obama administration claimed that the individual mandate is a necessary and proper means of carrying out its reforms in the health-insurance market. These reforms include requiring insurers to offer coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, to extend coverage to dependents up to age 26, and to eliminate lifetime coverage caps. Because these reforms make health insurance more expensive, the government's lawyers claim that unless everyone is forced to buy health insurance, too many healthy people will sit on the market sidelines as 'free riders' until they become ill. So in order to make the 'reformed' health-insurance market work, it's necessary and proper to force everyone to buy insurance. Judge [Roger] Vinson flatly rejected the administration's attempt.... His decision acknowledges that, while reforming an insurance market is a regulation of commerce, Congress cannot artificially create its own 'free rider' crisis in the insurance market and then use that crisis to justify an otherwise unconstitutional mandate as 'necessary and proper' to save the market from collapse. This novel use of the Necessary and Proper Clause, if allowed to stand, would fundamentally transform our constitutional scheme from limited to unlimited federal power, narrowing the scope of individual liberty." --law professors Randy Barnett and Elizabeth Price Foley Government"The Constitution was written and ratified by men who saw it as a means both of enabling and restricting government -- balancing the requirements of efficiency and freedom. On and on, the warfare has gone between those complementary yet competing concepts. Since the New Deal, the general idea has been, yes, if Congress wants to do something (e.g., tell farmers what crops they may plant) for the supposed good of all, then such a plan must be good for all. Mustn't it? It's a bit late in the day, you may think, to reopen that immense and vital question, but sometimes the rule is better late than never." --columnist William Murchison Culture"Years ago, Washington should have encouraged civil society and political reform. America could have fostered a secular democratic opposition. Instead, by blindly backing Mr. Mubarak, the United States enabled the most militant, unified and organized Islamist party to take advantage of the growing discontent: the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the Brotherhood's supporters who fill the ranks of the protesters. The Muslim Brotherhood very likely will join a national unity government and eventually seize control. Its goal is to erect a Sunni version of Iran's Shiite theocracy. It champions the hatred of America, war with Israel and a global jihad against the West. It supports Hamas in the Gaza Strip and other terrorist groups. In short, the post-Mubarak regime most probably not only will be anti-Western but will have ties to al-Qa'ida and Iran's mullahs. Egypt is not some strategic backwater; it is not Yemen, Tunisia or Jordan. Rather, it is the cultural linchpin of the Arab world.... If the land of the pharaohs should go Islamic, it will reverberate across the entire region." --columnist Jeffrey T. Kuhner Re: The Left"[A]fter every multiple murder, liberals come up with some crackpot idea to 'do something' that invariably involves infringing on some aspect of our Second Amendment rights. ... In an open society that includes Sheriff Dumbnik and the ACLU, deranged individuals may explode into murder and mayhem now and then. The best we can do is enact policies that will reduce the death toll when these acts of carnage occur. There's only one policy of any kind that has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the highly regarded economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect. And the effect was not small. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent. When there are no armed citizens to stop mass murderers, the killers are able to shoot unabated, even pausing to reload their weapons, until they get bored and stop. ... Consider just the school shootings -- popular sites for mass murder because so many schools are 'gun-free zones.' Or, as mass murderers call them, 'free-fire zones.'" --columnist Ann Coulter Faith & Family"This week, the Planned Parenthood abortion business was caught in the latest undercover video investigation -- this time helping two people representing themselves as sex-trafficking-ring operatives bent on getting abortions for the underage girls they victimize. ... It's one thing for pro-choice advocates to talk a good game about women's rights, but it's another for the day-to-day abortion activists to defend these videos to anyone watching as paid staffers help supposed sex-trafficking perpetrators secure abortions. Average Americans viewing the videos will be appalled to see supposed sex traffickers being shown how to get young, illegally imported girls back on the street to further the sex trade shortly after their abortions. They will be astonished to see how those acting as sex traffickers are directed by Planned Parenthood officials to another, shadier abortion center that will give them less grief about abortions on the young women. ... The power of the footage on-screen and the sick nature of the revelations the videos contain have the potential to continue to break the abortion debate wide open." --Steven Ertelt, editor of LifeNews.com Reader Comments"Thank you for Mark Alexander's tribute to Ronald Reagan. One forgets how inspiring he was. If only we could find a selfless person who could carry on his legacy." --Bryan "Thank you, Mark! Your essay brought a tear to my eye. I share your admiration and respect for President Reagan. He was truly a giant among politicians, and we may never see such genuine leadership in the Oval Office in our lifetimes, but another Commander-in-Chief with his vision, patriotism, and integrity is EXACTLY what America needs right now!" --Rob "I read this with tears flowing down my face. What a beautiful tribute to a great man who seldom used the word, 'I.' It was always, 'We', 'You and I' in his speeches and writings. I want my grandchildren to grow up in a country with leaders like President Reagan. Whatever it takes I want to be a part of making that happen." --Bessie "This is the most important quote from Judge Vinson: '[T]his case is not about whether the Act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the constitutional role of the federal government.' If there was an honest media, this is what they should be focusing on. Instead, they assume it's a partisan decision and they go after him personally. It is sad, and even though this is a great and correct decision by Judge Vinson, I have little faith that anyone else will stand up to President Obama and his regime." --Jay
The Last Word"It's hard for many people to remember just how discouraged many Americans felt in 1980. In the previous decade, the United States had suffered a humiliating loss of nerve, if not outright defeat, in Vietnam. We'd witnessed Soviet expansion in Southeast Asia, Africa, and Central America. Fifty-two Americans were being held hostage in Iran -- for more than a year -- after attempts to rescue them had failed miserably, leaving eight American servicemen dead in the desert. The economy was in recession; mortgage rates were 13 percent and the prime rate went over 20 percent during the year; inflation was running at almost 14 percent and unemployment at 7.5 percent. Reagan gave Americans hope -- but he also changed the country, dramatically and quickly. His policies reined in inflation, allowed Americans to keep more of the money they earned, and helped create jobs in the private sector -- the largest peacetime expansion since World War II -- by lowering tax rates. But even more importantly, in my view, Reagan rebuilt the nation's defenses, helped stop the expansion of communism in our own hemisphere, and advanced the development of new weapons that made it impossible for the Soviets to keep up, which hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. ... Happy Birthday." --columnist Linda Chavez Opinion
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