Quote du jour

“Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.”

- Ronald Reagan

Just Because...

Quote du jour

“We owe this freedom of choice and action to those men and women in uniform who have served this nation and its interests in time of need. In particular, we are forever indebted to those who have given their lives that we might be free.”

- Ronald Reagan

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“Live simply, love generously, care deeply, speak kindly, leave the rest to God.”

- Ronald Reagan

Quote du jour

“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it on to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

– Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan on Joe Biden

Quote du jour

“[There was] some talk about Sen. Biden — now candidate for Pres. I saw him on CNN last night speaking to the John F. Kennedy school at Harvard U. He’s smooth but pure demagog[ue] — out to save Am[erica] from the Reagan doctrine.”

-Ronald Reagan

Normandy Speech: Ceremony Commemorating the 40th Anniversary of the Normandy Invasion, D-Day 6/6/84

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“The greatest leader is not necessarily the one who does the greatest things. He is the one that gets the people to do the greatest things.”

― Ronald Reagan

Quote du jour

It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first.

-Ronald Reagan

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Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today's world do not have.

-Ronald Wilson Reagan

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We have found, in our country, that when people have the right to make decisions as close to home as possible, they usually make the right decisions.

- Ronald Reagan

Quote du jour

"How do you tell a communist?
It's someone who reads Marx and Lenin.
How do you tell an anti-communist?
It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin."

-Ronald Reagan

Quote du jour

Most [tax revisions] didn't improve the system, they made it more like Washington itself: complicated, unfair, cluttered with gobbledygook and loopholes designed for those with the power and influence to hire high-priced legal and tax advisers.

- Ronald Reagan

Quote du jour

“It is my fervent goal and hope that we will some day no longer have to rely on nuclear weapons to deter aggression and assure world peace.”

-Ronald Reagan

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“We’re reducing tax rates by simplifying the complex system of special provisions that favor some at the expense of others. Restoring confidence in our tax system means restoring and respecting the principle of fairness for all. This means curtailing some business deductions now being written off; it means ending several personal deductions, including the state and local tax deduction, which actually provides a special subsidy for high-income individuals, especially in a few high-tax states. Two-thirds of Americans don’t even itemize, so they receive no benefit from the state and local tax deduction. But they’re being forced to subsidize the high-tax policies of a handful of states. This is truly taxation without representation.”

-Ronald Reagan

Abe Lincoln, Ronald Reagan and Melania Trump Walk into a Bar...

...the bar of high standards. What do these three have in common? Together, I believe they illustrate the difference between plagiarism and allusion. With Melania, the Jayson Blair of presidential candidate's wives, it was clearly plagiarism. Not that it was that big of a deal. No one expected the equivalent of the Gettysburg Address from her. Many people think the unforced error of the kerfluffle which came when the plagiarism came out, with the initial denials from the Trump camp, were largely due to Trump being too cheap to hire a decent speechwriter for her, and the attempt at cover up was just pure Trump.

But I read something by Mike Rowe, of "Dirty Jobs" fame, and former opera singer:

I remember, in the wake of the Challenger disaster, Ronald Reagan gave a truly extraordinary speech. Every sentence was brilliant, but this part was unforgettable.

“We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them this morning, as they prepared for their journey, waved goodbye, and slipped the surly bonds of earth to touch the face of God.”

I was 22 at the time, and I literally cried when I heard those words. I was truly touched. Later, I learned those words had been written for Reagan by Peggy Noonan. After that, I learned Peggy Noonan had lifted those words from a poem called “High Flight,” written by an airman who died in WWII named John McGee.

Did Ronald Reagan plagiarize Peggy Noonan? Did Peggy Noonan plagiarize John McGee?

Now I'm a little bit older than Mr. Rowe, I predate the 24 hour news cycle. In fact, I not only predate 24 hour news, but I predate 24 hour TV!

Back in the olden days, when there were only three networks, and cable was what you used to suspend bridges, TV stations didn't broadcast 24/7. Typically they ended their "broadcast day" around one or two in the morning. And typically, the station just before signing off the air, would play the National Anthem and a short video of a jet fighter flying, while a narrator recited the poem "High Flight". Having on more than one occasion stayed up past the end of the broadcast day, and because there was literally "nothing else on", people would watch and listen to the stirring words of Airman John McGee. For those of Ronald Reagan, Peggy Noonan and my generation (heady company!), the words of High Flight were totally familiar and totally appropriate for Reagan to allude to. Whippersnappers like Mike Rowe may not have known where the words came from, but there was no attempt at plagiarism there, or anything like it.

But people often attribute a quote to the person they heard it from first. Many people attribute the line to Robert Kennedy that he quoted from George Bernard Shaw:

You see things; and you say “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say “Why not?”

A more famous attribution of a literary allusion to the wrong source comes from the aforementioned Gettysburg Address. It concludes:

...that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Lincoln was alluding to John Wycliffe's prologue to his Bible translation of 1384:

This Bible is for the Government of the People, by the People, and for the People.

Lincoln knew the source of the quote, as, no doubt, did the majority of those who heard it. No one rose up to yell that Lincoln had cribbed part of his speech. But his allusion to it immortalized those words, and today, people who never heard of Wycliffe (that's okay. Today's government schools the kids don't hear about anybody!), have heard his words echo through the years.

So we have one plagiarist, small potatoes in comparison to the plagiarisms of Teddy Kennedy, Joe Biden and even President Obama, and two well read presidents, able to make allusions to words well said by others. If we were to stack every literary or cultural allusion in the same boat as plagiarism, we need to get a bigger boat!*

You may quote me.



* Jaws (1975)


Art by John Cox. More at John Cox Art

Quote du jour

We've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion but what's important - why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. . . I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.

- Ronald Reagan

800 Pound Reagan Statue

You know the old joke, "Where does an 800 pound gorilla sit?" "Anywhere he wants!" Fittingly, there is an eight foot high, eight hundred pound bronze statue of Ronald Reagan that was unveiled at the California State Capitol recently.

In the basement.

In an odd little story in my local dead tree newspaper, there is an article that they attribute to the Sacramento Bee. Wishing to quote the article (without an undue amount of typing), I went to LDT's (local dead tree) website, where I could find no trace at all of this article from yesterday's newspaper. So I went to the Sacratomato Bee, and found an article about the unveiling, minus the snark and detail printed in the dead tree version. I even Googled the first ten words of the piece, "Ronald Reagan is the hero who ended the Cold War..." to see if it was anywhere online. No joy.

As a public service, I will now type my little fingers to the bone to give you some of the flavor of this article.

It stands in the "lower rotunda," also known as the basement... Two Reagan cabinet secretaries were on hand for the event, Energy Secretary John Herrington and Secretary of State George Schultz. Schultz, 94 spoke for nearly 12 minutes without notes, telling stories of the Reagan he saw...

Compare & contrast with the current resident of the White House who cannot speak for 12 minutes to a kindergarten class without a teleprompter, or the current and previous Secretaries of State who cannot keep their stories straight for 12 minutes!

...Most of the people who crowded into the basement were Republicans. Several had connections to the governor and president. Only three Democratic legislators showed up, a pathetic showing. No statewide office holders* could break away from their busy schedules, including Gov. Jerry Brown, though Brown did sign the sculpture legislation**,  and included a message that cited Reagan's "courage and unique leadership ability."

Can't you just hear the scare quotes from the author as he talks about their "busy" schedules? Way to stay classy, Democrats! You get the feeling that if these turkeys were ever memorialized in bronze, you could use them as garden gnomes?

I would love to link you to this story so that you could get the full flavor of it, but perhaps it was just a little too honest for the sensibilities of modern newsmen? Or maybe, Brian Williams wrote it??

Should you visit the State Capitol in Sacramento, be sure to go down to the "lower rotunda" and see the 800 pound, eight foot tall statue of Reagan, or as we conservatives call it: "life sized".


* Most of whom are Democrats

** back in 2012

Quote du jour

"I have left orders to be awakened at any time during national emergency, even if I'm in a cabinet meeting."

-Ronald Reagan