Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
Let it be said of us, as Churchill said of his people in their most difficult hour: 'We ought to rejoice at the responsibilities with which destiny has honored us… and be proud that we are guardians of our country in an age when her life is at stake.'
That was Congressman Paul Ryan, speaking yesterday evening at the Claremont Institute's annual Churchill dinner, and if there's a more bracing or enjoyable way of beginning a Sunday morning than by savoring Paul Ryan's latest speech, I have yet to come across it. Another couple of excerpts:
[W]e are in our own 'Churchillian moment' – threatened, not by foreign aggression, but by a titanic fiscal imbalance that has the potential to crush America’s prosperity and diminish its capacity to lead the world....The thing I’ve learned, talking to the men and women I work for in Southern Wisconsin, is that Americans know we’re in trouble, and they’re ready to be talked to like adults, not pandered to like children. Churchill had a great faith in the good sense of the British people. This was the source of his ability to inspire all who heard him – he didn’t merely believe in his words, but also in those he was speaking to.
[T]he President...still has not put forward a credible plan to tackle the threat of ever-rising spending and debt. He has deferred the task of solving these challenges to one commission after another, only to ignore their recommendations. And it has been over 900 days since his party even bothered to pass a budget in the Senate....
Your leaders owe you a real choice. Do you want the President’s path of debt, doubt and decline, where government goes from promoting equal opportunity to equalizing the results of our lives? Or do you want the American idea: the opportunity society with the safety net, dedicated to liberty, equality of opportunity, and upward mobility...?
It is our moral obligation, as elected representatives, to give the American people this choice.
Read the entire magnificent address right here.
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Dec '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
I would love to see Newt get up there on stage with Ryan and go, not head-to-head, but back-to-back with him. This is the stuff we need right now. We don't have a perfect candidate in idealogical or personal terms, so we have to figure out who will fight, and then get guys like Ryan behind that person. We need rhetorical firepower with the substance to back it up, and despite the disappointment that Ryan didn't get in he can still be of great import during the next year.
Despite my statements a few weeks ago that I would vote for Cain if the election was then, I've warmed significantly to Newt. I see him as the one who can best fight, best challenge the assumptions of the left. Ryan isn't running, be he has a lot of the same abilities, and if Newt can get past the shots he took at Ryan, the combo (whether as Pres-VP or just having Ryan on his side in the campaign) would be incredible. I think it could go a long way in getting conservatives fired back up, as well, and we need that.
Mar '11
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
I'm sure it's a great speech, but it raises the question of why, if we are in a Churchillian moment, there is no Mr Churchill? Um, Mr Ryan, there is also a foreign threat, as well as the domestic threat (they are linked).
We have our Chamberlain, in the guise of Mr Obama. Halifax in the guise of Mr Biden.
I agree that Newt shows glimpses of Churchillian rhetoric (and imperfections), and may be our best bet. Of course, that may all change next week.
Edited on Nov 13, 2011 at 10:02amApr '11
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
It's hard to believe Ryan's not hearing his own name being called in ending his speech with the famous quote he does...
"Let it be said of us, as Churchill said of his people in their most difficult hour: “We ought to rejoice at the responsibilities with which destiny has honored us… and be proud that we are guardians of our country in an age when her life is at stake."
As it stands, it makes me wonder if he actually believes what Churchill said. He ought to let us rejoice with him.
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
Dear Representative Ryan,
What a wonderful speech, and what a wonderful coincidence that you too are inspired by the example of Winston Churchill, a person I've devoted no small amount of time studying as well.
You do remember, don't you, when the fate of Great Britain literally hung in the balance, and people far and wide (including prominent members of his own party) practically begged Churchill to step forward and take on the awesome duty of leading his great country through that terrible time, and Churchill magnificently answered:
And remember how, from his bench in the House, he went on to challenge others to step forward and embrace the duty of leadership? You do remember that, don't you? Me neither.
Sincerely,
Dave Carter
Nov '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
Dave Carter:
And remember how, from his bench in the House, he went on to challenge others to step forward and embrace the duty of leadership? You do remember that, don't you? Me neither.
Sincerely,
Dave Carter · Nov 13 at 11:24am
Brilliant, Dave!
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
Yeah, Ryan. Talk is cheap. 2012 was the Presidency to win. By 2016 it'll be too late.
Apr '11
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
I wonder if he'd consider going on the ticket as Veep, depending on who was doing the asking.
Nov '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
I was going to attend this Claremont event -- I live only an hour away from Newport Beach. It would have been nice to have seen some old friends (Charles Kesler, etc.).
I decided last minute not to go . . . for the profoundly depressing reason that Mr. Delingpole cites.
Edited on Nov 13, 2011 at 12:26pmRe: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
Well, I did go, and assuming it is evident that Ryan (like others) believes that 2016 will not in fact be too late, the important question to ask may not be whether he is right but whether he is right to believe it for the reasons he seems to.
Judging by the consonance of his remarks with his personal political strategy, Ryan agrees with Niall Ferguson that the peril facing America's primacy and prosperity can be fully comprehended and sufficiently resolved by focusing like a laser beam on the 'fiscal threat' -- treating it (as Ryan did in his speech) as today's defining crisis, on par with global Communism.
From this vantage, the political roots of our economic disaster should remain in the background; get out your green eyeshades and get to work. Whatever Barack Obama might do over the next four years, we are already in an existential predicament. Ryan gives of the impression of a man who knows it is too early for him to run for president, but his analyst's view may be closer to the feeling that it is too late to trifle with the idea, and then the execution, of a presidential campaign...
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
The rejoinder to the Ryan approach, which could be heard later last night by those with ears to hear, is that even the beginnings of a strong fiscal fix leave untouched precisely those deeper political problems that, arguably, gave rise to the bad economics. (The argument carries even more force in Europe, where Italy, for example, raises the question of how countries struggling to possess real countrymen and governments that cannot govern will ever arrive at a thriving and durable economy.)
Paradoxically, however, the Ryan/Ferguson judgment that the fiscal crisis is existential implies that America lacks the cultural and political fundaments to withstand a full-force economic blow. If the US is not lacking, however, then it turns out 2016 will not be 'too late' in the way the fiscal warriors describe. And the question of whether 2016 will be too late in the way that Obama's fiercest critics suppose is reopened in a different light.
Jun '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
What we are facing is a crisis of values of which the current fiscal crisis is only a symptom. No single individual, no matter how well placed, can reverse the tide of a culture run to decadence. The answer resides in the conservative principles that made this nation great. A rebirth, if such a thing is possible, must be a collective exercise based on family, community, and faith.
Dec '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
To Dave, James, and others, with all due respect (and with a very big James Taranto style metaphor alert):
The milk has been spilled, so where do we go from here? It is true that talk is, indeed, cheap. It is also true that Ryan was a jug of very high quality milk, and nobody is particularly happy about him being splattered across the floor. But he's out, he's not running (neither is Daniels, Christie, or Palin), and we're left with a pretty lousy field. So my question is how do we use Ryan and speeches like the one above to 1) improve our chances in 2012 and 2) hold the new Republican President accountable to shrinking the size of government?
It's time for us to suck it up, work with what we've got and start focusing on the agenda even more than the candidate. Continuing to drag out the Ryan mourning period is pointless. We have to win the White House, and wondering what might have been is counterproductive. We have to win.
May '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
If Mitt is the nominee, as he probably is (ugh), then his choice of running mate will be key. It will say a lot about how he intends to govern. Vice-president Ryan could make a huge difference, both during the campaign, and speaking for the White House during the all-important discussions with the new Republican Congress in 2013. It would be a serious pick. Make him your constitutional "all-reform" czar. Make it the only one you need...and they are both accountable.
Step up to the plate, Mitt...and go for the fences.
Apr '11
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
@d_m - re: a "Ryan mourning period." People need time to mourn. That's why there are wakes. Unfortunately, Ryan's more like the corpse at the Republican wake who keeps rising out of his coffin, if only to remind us he's not running, and of the "lousy field" we're left with in the meantime. We're just gasping with every rise. Nothing more, nothing less. The professionals will do their undertaking. We'll move on. We'll either have our four more years, or Bush 3.0 is already slated for release: January 20, 2013.
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
das_motorhead: To Dave, James, and others, ...
... So my question is how do we use Ryan and speeches like the one above to 1) improve our chances in 2012 and 2) hold the new Republican President accountable to shrinking the size of government?
It's time for us to suck it up, work with what we've got and start focusing on the agenda even more than the candidate. Continuing to drag out the Ryan mourning period is pointless. We have to win the White House, and wondering what might have been is counterproductive. We have to win. · Nov 13 at 1:14pm
Thank you. Your point is well taken, and I agree that in terms of lending rhetorical and substantive firepower, Ryan will be, and ought to be, invaluable. My comment above was meant to convey my unwillingness to be lectured to regarding the obligations of the Churchillian imperative by someone who is himself resolutely, imperviously, and immovably immune to them.
May '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
I do not see how anyone extends congressman Ryan anything beyond polite courtesy. Someone who has clearly heard his country's call and has refused to step up to the plate is a pretender, no matter how smart and informed he may be on fiscal matters.
Serious men, serious women recognize that the call to leadership is not satisfactorily answered by saying, "I have this other, smaller job to do and my family would find that greater calling inconvenient."
Congressman Ryan may be brilliant, but the best tactician cannot win the war from somewhere down in the ranks. The Congressman has no credibility to speak to me. I offered my life for this country, if he cannot be bothered to do the same when duty has called, then may he go and his children and grandchildren live with the shame.
May '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
While I agree that Ryan is among the best we have, he has his failings beyond what James D pointed out:
1. He is head of the budget process in the House and has not even proposed a fundamental change to an appropriate form of constructing a budget - like zero based. Even if he tried and failed, it would have instructed people just how suicidally insane our current system is.
2. Even when he is strong, he is not strong enough. E.G. first sentence "has the potential to" should be "if unchecked will shortly." This would be more accurate and stronger.
James P - We have a cloud of Black Swans that have the sky resembling a typhoon in full force. he knows the numbers. Either he thinks he knows something that we do not and he has yet to communicate - or he knows that 2016 is too late.
Mar '11
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
This comment, alone, should guarantee James honorary Citizenship of the USA.
Mar '11
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
James P (and Mr Ryan) - may I spell this out for you? By 2016 Obamacare will be irreversible.
Edited on Nov 13, 2011 at 7:42pmJul '10
Re: Guardians of Our Country When Her Life is at Stake
Ryan is a first rate conservative politician.
Let's attack him before he develops the chops, fundraising, and resume to bring his influence to bear on a national level.
Ryan's decision couldn't possibly have anything (No Chance!) to do with a rational calculation that the Ricochetoisie aren't capable of funding a presidential campaign on one year's notice.
It's amazing that the Congressman has been labeled a "pretender" precisely because he hasn't accepted this pretense.
Could Ryan really put together a presidential campaign from scratch in the time since he has come to national attention? No, he'd get crushed by the Romney/Perry machines. Even Barry and his unicorns took 4 years... and he was chasing the nomination from the ahistorical Dems. The GOP is much, much, more likely to demand candidates pay their dues.
Do we have to tear him down before he reaches a point in his career when he might win?
Shame on you Paul Ryan for having a clue!