Got this late, but I thought I'd share it......_
____----********O********----______
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 ... although equally applicable to Ronald Reagan's Birthday, 6 February 1911
_____----********O********----______
INSIGHT
"Ronald Reagan will go down in history as one of the greatest Presidents that America has ever had. Historians will undoubtedly focus on his enormous political impact, both domestically and internationally. But his emphasis on moral and spiritual values was one of his greatest contributions. Mr. Reagan made Americans feel good about themselves, no matter what the problems were. More than that, he pointed them to the moral and spiritual foundations which have made this nation great -- foundations derived from the Biblical Judeo-Christian heritage." --Rev. Billy Graham
_____----********O********----______
IChThUS IMPRIMIS
"You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may praise your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." --Matthew 5:14-16
_____----********O********----______
FAMILY
"Families must continue to be the foundation of our nation. Families -- not government programs -- are the best way to make sure our children are properly nurtured, our elderly are cared for, our cultural and spiritual heritages are perpetuated, our laws are observed and our values are preserved. Thus it is imperative that our government's programs, actions, officials and social welfare institutions never be allowed to jeopardize the family. We fear the government may be powerful enough to destroy our families; we know that it is not powerful enough to replace them. The New Republican Party must be committed to working always in the interest of the American family." --Ronald Reagan
_____----********O********----______
CULTURE
"For the West -- for America, the time has come to dare to show to the world that our civilized ideas, our traditions, our values, are not -- like the ideology and war machine of totalitarian societies -- just a facade of strength. It is time for the world to know our intellectual and spiritual values are rooted in the source of all strength, a belief in a Supreme Being, and a law higher than our own." --Ronald Reagan
_____----********O********----______
LIBERTY
"The two most important things that can be done to promote democracy in the world is first, to bring moral clarity back to world affairs and second, to link international policies to the advance of democracy around the globe. When we are unwilling to draw clear moral lines between free societies and fear societies, when we are unwilling to call the former good and the latter evil, we will not be able to advance the cause of peace because peace cannot be disconnected from freedom. By not understanding why freedom is so important to peace, we run the risk of trying to find 'our dictator' in the hopes that he will provide security. In the end, we are likely to find ourselves supporting regimes that repress their own people and endanger us. When Ronald Reagan called the USSR an evil empire he was fiercely criticized by many in the West who saw him as a dangerous warmonger. But when we in the Gulag heard of Reagan's statement, we were ecstatic. We knew that once there was no moral confusion between the two types of societies, once good and evil were kept separate, the Soviet Union's days were numbered. Soon, the most fearsome totalitarian empire in human history collapsed without a shot being fired and the cause of peace and security was advanced. I have no doubt that moral clarity will have the same effect today and equally serve the cause of peace, stability and security around the world." --Natan Sharansky
_____----********O********----______
THE GIPPER
"And I hope that someday your children and grandchildren will tell of the time that a certain president came to town at the end of a long journey and asked their parents and grandparents to join him in setting America on the course to the new millennium -- and that a century of peace, prosperity, opportunity, and hope followed. So, if I could ask you just one last time: Tomorrow, when mountains greet the dawn, would you go out there and win one for the Gipper?" --Ronald Reagan
Fly your Patriot Colors!
Visit the Patriot Shop:
http://PatriotShop.US/
_____----********O********----______
OPINION IN BRIEF
"As I look back, I really believe that God was working in this country and across this globe to achieve His purposes through Ronald Reagan. God's timetable was better than Dad's. Had my father won the presidency in 1976, I think there's a good chance the Berlin Wall would not have come down and the Cold War would not have ended. Why? Because a number of key players were not yet in place. One key player was Pope John Paul II, who would join with President Reagan in taking a stand against the 'evil empire' of Soviet Communism; he was not elected by the College of Cardinals until 1978. Czech dissident Vaclav Havel did not publish his influential essay 'The Power of the Powerless' until 1978. President Reagan's strongest European ally, Lady Margaret Thatcher, did not become prime minister of Great Britain until 1979. The occupation of the Gdansk shipyards in Poland, led by Solidarity leader Lech Walesa, did not take place until 1980. And Mikhail Gorbachev, who ushered in the era of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (reform), did not achieve office until 1985. Though Dad was disappointed to lose the nomination in 1976, he was right on schedule, according to God's timing. Dad won the election in 1980, exactly when God had planned. The pieces of the global puzzle fell into place, a hunger for freedom swept Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union imploded, the Berlin Wall toppled, the Cold War ended, and the world is a better place to live in -- all in God's good time." --Michael Reagan
_____----********O********----______
GOVERNMENT
"The federal government has taken too much tax money from the people, too much authority from the states, and too much liberty with the Constitution." --Ronald Reagan
Restore the foundations!
Support the 2005 Patriot Fund:
http://FederalistPatriot.US/support/
_____----********O********----______
RE: THE LEFT
"Senator Kerry has a long record as a defeatist and obstructionist. Back in 1971, he said, 'we cannot fight communism all over the world' -- adding in the same arrogant tone he uses today, 'I think we should have learned that lesson by now.' Ronald Reagan never learned that lesson -- and hundreds of millions of human beings are free of communist tyranny today as a result. But during all the years when President Reagan was building up our military forces and our intelligence agencies, Senator Kerry was consistently voting against the appropriations required to do so. What both men were doing was consistent with their respective assumptions and goals. Senator Kerry was just one of the defeatist elitists who regarded the communist bloc as a 'fact of life' which we could only accept and which it was futile to waste resources opposing. They imagined themselves to be so much wiser than other people that condescension was only natural, as they brushed aside any other viewpoint with such dismissive words as 'cowboy' or even 'stupid.' The fact that events proved the defeatist elitists dead wrong in the Cold War -- and now again in the Iraqi elections -- has not yet broken through their smugness. Probably nothing ever will. But that does not mean that the rest of us need to keep taking their high opinion of themselves seriously." --Thomas Sowell
_____----********O********----______
POLITICAL FUTURES
"Ronald Reagan's basic beliefs were truly that -- beliefs. And because he was a believer he did not suffer from the dismal plague of doubts which has assailed so many politicians in our times and which has tendered them incapable of clear decisions." --Lady Margaret Thatcher
_____----********O********----______
FOR THE RECORD
"I left the Democrat Party, and...I don't believe we changed. We still support the same beliefs we always held, but the party leadership set off on an entirely different course." --Ronald Reagan
_____----********O********----______
THE LAST WORD
"The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a bit of the 'shining city upon a hill.' The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free. I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still. And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that: After two hundred years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness toward home. We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women across America who for eight years did the work that brought America back. My friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all." --Ronald Reagan, Farewell Address, 1989
Lex et Libertas -- Semper Vigilo, Paratus, et Fidelis! Mark Alexander, Publisher, for the editors and staff. (Please pray for our Patriot Armed Forces standing in harm's way around the world in defense of our liberty, and for the families awaiting their safe return.)