A
Time for Choosing
a.k.a. The Speech
Ronald
Reagan, Given on Numerous Occasions and in Numerous Locations as
a Stump Speech for Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater in 1964.
A Version of This Speech Was Broadcast in a Televised Address on
October 27, 1964.
I
am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for
this.
Its
time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for
us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all
our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."
This
idea that government was beholden to the people, that it
had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique
idea in all the long history of mans relation to man. This
is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity
for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution
and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital
can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You
and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest
there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or
down. Up to mans age-old dream the maximum of individual
freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of
totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian
motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked
on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer
of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties,
donations and benefits."
The
Founding Fathers knew a government cant control the economy
without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets
out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose.
So we have come to a time for choosing.
Public
servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater
service we could render if only we had a little more money and a
little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate
function, government does nothing as well or as economically as
the private sector.
Yet
any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, were
denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems
impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption
that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They
tell us were always "against," never "for"
anything.
We
are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment
by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security
as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those
entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding
its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of
the program means that we want to end payments
.
We
are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with
nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against
doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy,
if not socialism, all over the world.
We
need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward restoring
for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no
one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength
and ability will take him
. But we can not have such reform
while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as
a means of achieving changes in our social structure
.
Have
we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination
of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate
taxation?
Today in our country the tax collectors share
is 37 cents of every dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile,
so close to slipping from our grasp.
Are
you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware,
and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will
you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community?
Realize that the doctors fight against socialized medicine
is your fight. We cant socialize the doctors without socializing
the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power
is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you
fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers,
clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding
the crocodile hoping hell eat you last.
If
all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think whats
at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known
in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security
anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability
within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom
for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy
of accommodation.
They
say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are
wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers.
We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston
Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by
material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world,
we learn we are spirits-not animals." And he said, "There
is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space,
which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."
You
and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children
this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them
to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we
fail, at least let our children and our childrens children
say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could
be done.
[Posted
June 9, 2004]
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