Hey, It's Peter!
Here is Peter Robinson discussing his pictorial book on Ronald Reagan. My favorite line: "He really did stand where he stood." Peter touches on how younger Americans probably don't understand what kind of seminal character President Reagan truly was (I wonder if they know who he was at all). Having been born in '81, I have little recollection of his presidency first hand; I absolutely remember how my parents, especially my father, felt about him. As Peter notes, President Reagan unabashedly made the case for the moral superiority of Western Liberalized Democracy, which is what I believe resonated so strongly with people like my father. My dad, a Christian and born in 1947, somehow survived the societal nightmare of the late '60's and 70's unscathed with work ethic, integrity and regard for individual personal responsibility intact (throw in some luck, his draft number never came up). To my father, Ronald Reagan represented a return to maturity for people who took seriously the role of human morality cultivated by Western Civilization and institutionalized in the United States. I've even heard an old leftist admit he'd never been more proud to be an American after listening to Reagan speak. At any rate, Peter thank you for taking the effort to remind us of President Reagan.
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Jul '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
I have found (and there was a great article on this I read in the last week, if I can remember where I saw it) that while there is a little bit of shifting and fashion pressures going on, most people tend to stay with their core values. The same mix is everywhere.
The media will chase "the spirit of the age" until the cows come home, and present whatever they think that is as America, but in the meantime folks show up for work and play ball with their kids. Greater opportunity or greater economic pressure may see mom go to work, but my grandmother did too when the times called for it.
Growing up where I did, everybody hated Reagan, calling him criminal, stupid, and so on. I would just throw a Carter back at them: the Rose Garden hostage; Mr. Malaise; lusting in his heart; Mr. Peanut; Mr. Double Double (double digit inflation, double digit unemployment).
I was wary of Reagan going in, but I paid close attention to what he did with what was touted as an unwinnable situation when Carter was facing it. Most of the bums on Eastern Avenue actually found work! A miracle!!!
Oct '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
For a sense of Reagan's adherence to principle, it's worthwhile reading about his dealing with the air traffic controller's strike. It happened shortly after he entered office and his staff was apparently unsure of how it would play out publicly. Reagan stuck to his guns (can I say that?) and...
If you're unfamiliar with the event, I won't spoil it for you. However, in the time-honored manner of aging men everywhere, let me tell you, young fellow, what it looked like from the trenches. I was a young surfer who'd recently moved to Hawaii and was looking for work to support my habit. I'd worked hanging drywall summers between college semesters and also afterward, but I was told I wouldn't find work there without joining the union. I became a member of local 745, and while I particularly liked my (mostly enormous Polynesian) union Brethren, I chafed under the red fist of union control. When the story of the air traffic controllers threatening to strike became news and I heard their average salary and benefits, any sympathy I might have felt for a fellow working stiff vanished.---More below---
Oct '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
Reagan's handling of the whole affair, in the face of the most dire predictions of the press, was balm to my oppressed soul. But go read about it yourself. Hello...hello? I guess you already left. Ah well, the impatience of youth.
May '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
Thanks for the link, Mike. Peter's last sentence of that interview was wonderful, a concise justification for granting Reagan the status of "great." I won't transcribe here; listen for yourself, everyone. Really wonderful.
Jun '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
I was born in 1951, so I remember the Goldwater campaign, the "Great Society's" attack on America, Nixon, and Carter. I have a keen memory, as a brand-new lawyer, hearing Ronald Reagan give a speech in Salt Lake City in his 1980 campaign.
It was a mesmerizing talk. I have no recollection of anything he said, except that he evoked the America I remembered from the 1950s and the America I wished to be part of again and to raise my children in.
I became a devoted follower, and everything I've learned about him convinces me that he was an extraordinary man and a great president.
Edited on Feb 3, 2011 at 11:04amJan '11
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
In Dec. of 1974 then Gov. Reagan replied to my question about the future of the Republican party and whether or not he planned to start a 3rd party.
He wrote, "I have no plans at this time to form a new party. I do hope to work toward better communication of conservative principles. I am going to do my utmost to convince as many people as possible that conservatism is the majority political ethic of America."
He did just that.
I was 11 years old. He was a generous and inspiring man.
Oct '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
Lots of us young people (well, center-right ones anyway) love Reagan. I was born in 1987, but I remember being riveted at sunday school, as the lady teaching it told us how Reagan brought the Berlin Wall down, (her husband was working in Germany at the time--as a Western security guard at the Berlin Wall, I think).
I remember watching all sorts of TV shows that showed the threat of Soviet Russia. I remember the horror of nuclear armegeddon, or at least the societal horror that lingered in the 90s.
And most of all, the stories of German reunification. Of families, held apart for two generations. A standard of living one third that of the west, and all the effort the two halves were putting into being a single whole, once again.
(Of course this created enormous geopolitical problems, least of which was the creation of the Euro to keep Germany in check. But still, it was the single greatest moment in the past century).
Oct '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
Well. I love Reagan as a squishy center-right moderate. We all claim Reagan justifies our political views, don't we? Even the left does it nowadays!
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
Thanks for spotting the book, Mike, and thanks for your kind words, everyone.
For me, it's wonderful--really wonderful--to see how much Ronald Reagan still means to so many. And humbling. Getting the chance to work for that man while I was still barely more than a kid was the luckiest break of my life.
Sep '10
Re: Hey, It's Peter!
For a sense of Reagan's adherence to principle, it's worthwhile reading about his dealing with the air traffic controller's strike
Before he went Olbermann on us, Chris Matthews did a segment of Hardball at the Reagan Library (I think, I go from memory) and in one of his interviews (I can't recall who it was) he said by way of anecdote that he heard through the grapevine that this was the single incident that convinced the Soviets that by temperament they would never get anywhere trying to push Reagan around. I believe it was something like "they thought anybody who could break a wildcat strike meant they were dealing with a different kind of President."