"Reagan's Radical Rhetoric"

Click here for an article by Michael Lind at Salon entitled "Reagan's Radical Rhetoric." He fleshes out quotations from Reagan such as this excerpt from his keynote address at the 1964 Republican National Convention which nominated Barry Goldwater:

"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 children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done."

On Vietnam:

"It’s silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas."

Lind says:

The greatest damage done to American political culture by Reagan’s extremist rhetoric has been its effect on public perception of the legitimacy of government—any government, at any level, in any situation.  It is true that Reagan, after being elected as president, did not seriously try to repeal the New Deal.  It is also true that he reluctantly consented to tax increases when supply-side tax cuts blew a hole in the federal budget.  But his moderation in office had less effect on American society than the decades of vilification of the public sector that he pumped like toxic waste into public discourse.

Here are some Reagan quotes on the subject of government:

In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’

The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away.

One way to make sure crime doesn’t pay would be to let the government run it.

Today, if you invent a better mousetrap, the government comes along with a better mouse.

Government always finds a need for whatever money it gets.

Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them.

Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.

No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!

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.

Governments tend not to solve problems, only to rearrange them.

Lind says:

No American president or prominent public figure, including champions of small government like Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson, has ever demonized government as consistently and crudely as Ronald Reagan did. In three decades as a commentator, political candidate and politician, Reagan told the American people that government at all levels was a hostile alien force seeking only to steal their money and eradicate their freedom.