Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address [Archive] - Toyota Yaris Forums

View Full Version : Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address

Bob_VT

01-12-2009, 10:01 PM

why?

01-12-2009, 10:23 PM

One that will fall on the deaf ears of all that support Obama. Although Obama himself sems to realize the things he said he can't actually do.

PetersRedYaris

01-12-2009, 10:42 PM

I think Obama will do a good job, but he'll accomplish less than half of what he said he would. Time will tell, I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt...

KCALB SIRAY

01-12-2009, 11:58 PM

One that will fall on the deaf ears of all that support Obama. Although Obama himself sems to realize the things he said he can't actually do.

I saw him state it to Geroge Stephanopoulos the other day and laughed in my head. It went something like this, "Look (long 5 second pause), um (filler), I realize (long 5 second pause), um (filler).....and so on

dlinkwit27

01-13-2009, 12:03 AM

oh republicans. They want government just small enough to fit in the bedroom.

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 12:49 AM

oh republicans. They want government just small enough to fit in the bedroom.

"I will not engage in a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed"

Can't remember who said it, but it fits the quote above. Last time this thread got really nasty (Old "McCain takes the lead" thread) and I don't want to involve myself this time. In the words of the great American who said "Can't we all just get along?- Rodney King(paraphrased)

KCALB SIRAY

01-13-2009, 12:58 AM

"I will not engage in a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed"

Can't remember who said it, but it fits the quote above. Last time this thread got really nasty (Old "McCain takes the lead" thread) and I don't want to involve myself this time. In the words of the great American who said "Can't we all just get along?- Rodney King(paraphrased)

aww someone remembers my thread, lol. My work is done. Well said, Bob. Hopefully we can keep this one going and not have a pissing match:thumbsup:

ChinoCharles

01-13-2009, 02:14 AM

You people crack me up.

Of course he isn't going to do half of what he said he is going to do. Running for president is about instilling optimism in people. Name one president that won on a platform of staunch realism. The American public won't vote for the man who tells it like it is. They vote for the man who tells it how it ought to be. Now that he did what he needed to do to win, I seriously doubt you will see any sweeping legislation from his end of things in his first term, at least when it comes to domestic programs. There will be bailout money for the states to spend on infrastructure projects and some tax incentives and that is about it. Terrorism, Israelis on the rampage, NAFTA, CAFTA, WTFTA... all plenty to keep him busy. You'll see the government get larger and become more invasive in the business of the private sector, and at the end of it all hopefully the dow has gone up. Actually, the dow is like Barack's score in the game of life. Just watch it. :laugh:

And lastly, God forbid we get attacked again. That is the wild card right now. We rallied behind the first president that went through something like that. I doubt the next one is so lucky.

yaris-me

01-13-2009, 05:00 AM

I viewed Reagan casket at his library before he was buried. I got to the college parking lot at about 4 pm and stood in line for over 10 hours with no food or water. I did go to the restroom once. They took groups by bus up to the library and you were allowed to walk around the casket and out. They gave everyone a thank you card which I have framed. After an hour drive I got home at 4:30 am. It is something I will remember.

fat like reflexes

01-13-2009, 10:11 AM

didn't federal spending increase under reagan, leading to then record deficits (as opposed to the now record deficits incurred under our latest big government republican administration?) that's why i voted for barr, even though he had no chance.

jclo3313

01-13-2009, 10:22 AM

Opened up a new can of worms did'nt you Bob? I loved Ronny Ray Gun.

PaidTimeOff

01-13-2009, 02:55 PM

"I will not engage in a battle of wits with someone who is unarmed"

Can't remember who said it, but it fits the quote above. Last time this thread got really nasty (Old "McCain takes the lead" thread) and I don't want to involve myself this time. In the words of the great American who said "Can't we all just get along?- Rodney King(paraphrased)

You say you don't want to get in an argument, but you're essentially putting down the person whom you quoted with your own quote. I'm just sayin'...

Altitude

01-13-2009, 05:37 PM

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 06:00 PM

Either you are saying that despite Reagan's speech writer's words of hope and courage things can still go to hell (as they did with 'ol Ronny) or that - in so many words - his speech writer's message is/was no different than Obama's.

So which is it?

Don't want to argue about it- in my opinion President Reagan gave Americans pride in their country again- after the Carter fiasco, Gerald Fords "no win situation", and Nixon's abbreviated second term. This country, like it or not, is the Frank Sinatra of the world- the most loved, hated, respected, feared, generous, compassionate, demonized, and lionized nation on earth. We openly broadcast our failures, scandals, and dirty laundry as well as being the first to lend anyone a helping hand. We welcome all persons, regardless of economics or social standing and give all the opportunity to succeed. There is far more opportunity in this country for anyone than in any other country on the face of the earth.
The difference between President Reagan and President-Elect Obama is that Reagan crafted his "message" from long term experience- as president of the SAG and Governor of the state of California. He entered his Presidency with a core of values that were his own- not a conglomerate of focus groups and public opinion. When the going got tough his convictions didn't waver.
As far as I have seen, President-Elect Obama has already wavered on his foreign policy (He has backed off his pledge to meet with Achmenijad (sp?) and Kim Il Jong unconditionally)and on his pledge to bring a fresh face to government (the appointment of most of the Clinton gov't to positions in his).
Time will tell if President-Elect Obama is to be a great president. You cannot realistically anoint him before he has taken office.

ChinoCharles

01-13-2009, 06:04 PM

Nor can you realistically demonize him before he has taken office.

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 06:07 PM

You say you don't want to get in an argument, but you're essentially putting down the person whom you quoted with your own quote. I'm just sayin'...

I'm not arguing. The view of the long term picture can only be gained with experience. If you cannot accept the fact that as an orator, President Reagan was one of the most gifted and recognized presidents of this century, then you cannot step outside the box and view things objectively.

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 06:09 PM

Nor can you realistically demonize him before he has taken office.

Not demonizing him- just taking a wait and see attitude before I lionize him

ChinoCharles

01-13-2009, 06:13 PM

You gave Ronald Reagan credit for heading up the SAG and becoming governor of California, but give Obama no credit from having two degrees from two of the best schools in the country. Instead, he is somehow inexperienced. I'm not singling you out. Most take this approach. I'm just saying it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 06:28 PM

No one is denying that President-Elect Obama is a really bright guy, probably the most educated president in the history of the nation. My point is that once you get the education, lifes experience should shape what your views are- not your college professors.
President-Elect Obama has had a wealth of experience maturing as only an African-American (in relation to most other politicians from senator and up) could experience. He has not had much experience as the leader of any group- this could be good and it could be bad. To say he is a great president because he has two degrees from one of the top learning institutions is premature, and a swipe at "lesser" presidents such as Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe and Lincoln

Bob_VT

01-13-2009, 06:30 PM

I think the first line of the speach sets the tone. I have no doubt that PE Obama will deliver a speach that will become historic.

I am going to sit back and watch the fireworks. Since there is only one person in the oval office..... he will be the focal point of everything regardless if it is inherited or not.

There are a hundreds of good speakers Reagan was one, Kennedy was one, Obama is one however being a good speaker is NOT related to a person's education. One of the greatest speakers in all of history never spent a day in college nor did he have a degree!

ChinoCharles

01-13-2009, 06:34 PM

He has not had much experience as the leader of any group
The Harvard Law Review and the most prolific campaign in modern political history don't count for much, eh?

I'd stack those up against the SAG and a governorship any day. Arnold is the current governor of California, mind you. Maybe HE should be president, since he is more qualified.

And about speaking, trust I have a deep respect for the power of persuasion. I in no way believe being a good speaker makes you a good leader or a just man. Hitler?

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 07:00 PM

The Harvard Law Review and the most prolific campaign in modern political history don't count for much, eh?

I'd stack those up against the SAG and a governorship any day. Arnold is the current governor of California, mind you. Maybe HE should be president, since he is more qualified.

And about speaking, trust I have a deep respect for the power of persuasion. I in no way believe being a good speaker makes you a good leader or a just man. Hitler?

You miss my point- I'm not implying that Arnold has more qualifications for the presidency, nor that President-Elect Obama has zero leadership experience. My point is that the collegiate experience and real world experience are vastly different and that I would reserve my judgment on the legacy of the Obama Presidency until it has passed.
I also take it that you don't remember the Carter campaign in '76- that was the most prolific campaign in political history, taking a relatively unknown Georgia peanut farmer and electing him to the governorship of a southern state and vaulting him into the presidency in 4 years. Carter was no one, even after he was elected governor.
I hope President Obama exceeds the expectations that everyone has for President-Elect Obama, and thusly earns his greatness- rather than having it thrust upon him. No truly great person has been given his greatness- he has forged it and earned it himself

Bob_VT

01-13-2009, 07:08 PM

So you are comparing Hitler to Obama? Have you read the Harvard Law Review? You are basing PE Obama's potential on his education...... correct?

Stop twisting what is being said! Bobselectric was saying Reagan was a great orator which come from the ability to speak to cameras. That is where the SAG comes in.

Just a simple FYI the greatest orator was Jesus...... not educated with degrees.

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 07:13 PM

Just a simple FYI the greatest orator was Jesus...... not educated with degrees.

yeah-but who wrote his stuff-GOD- it's easy to be eloquent when GOD writes your stuff :wink:

KCALB SIRAY

01-13-2009, 07:17 PM

Pulling it back to the post, the idea of a Big Governement is not the right choice. We've seen it fall into the wrong hands and the housing bubble was the soap, so to speak. Too much lathering put us where we are now and it's time to stop it, cough ahembarneyfrankjimmycarterahem cough

Bob_VT

01-13-2009, 07:21 PM

yeah-but who wrote his stuff-GOD- it's easy to be eloquent when GOD writes your stuff :wink:

Huh so even his writer didn't have a degree! :biggrin:

Pulling it back to the post, the idea of a Big Governement is not the right choice. We've seen it fall into the wrong hands and the housing bubble was the soap, so to speak. Too much lathering put us where we are now and it's time to stop it, cough ahembarneyfrankjimmycarterahem cough

You got the dem flu? :eek:

ChinoCharles

01-13-2009, 07:22 PM

Jesus can't be the greatest orator ever. He isn't even on YouTube.

KCALB SIRAY

01-13-2009, 07:25 PM

Jesus can't be the greatest orator ever. He isn't even on YouTube.

Off topic:

http://lewandopix.com/files/buddy_christ2.jpg

On Topic:

The pork will comma with Obama, I'm just saying:iono::laugh:

ChinoCharles

01-13-2009, 07:27 PM

I need to unsubscribe from this thread before I start swearing. Politics I can argue about and stay somewhat classy. Religion? Erm no. Later all, have fun!

bobselectric

01-13-2009, 07:33 PM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JKIZ7j20EA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjWDrTXMgF8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhXeZ453ux4, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75V2socOEVc

Examples- I hope that President-Elect Obama could make me feel the way these clips do

Bob_VT

01-13-2009, 07:59 PM

I remember every one of those!

Altitude

01-13-2009, 08:16 PM

So I guess we're in for 4 years of comparison to Reagan. Fair enough.

As for Jesus, I find it hard to attribute anything written in The Bible as the actual words he may or may not have spoken given the fact that most of what is written of him and his 'speeches' was done after the fact and through the filter of hundreds of years after his death. Needless to say the words themselves are some of the most profound. It's a shame most people can't abide by them much less avoid the trap of spinning his teachings to match ones own point of view.

PaidTimeOff

01-13-2009, 09:00 PM

Just a simple FYI the greatest orator was Jesus...... not educated with degrees.

Well, seeing as how we don't have any actual transcripts of his speeches, nobody can say for certain that that is true.

Sure, Christianity has spread throughout the world and has had many followers but it's a fact that the Bible wasn't written until hundreds of years after his death. He never actually addressed millions in his speeches, he simply addressed a few and his beliefs were spread by word of mouth. We've all played the game "telephone" when we were kids right? You remember how messed up that original message got by the end of the line? Imagine how different the speeches were passing through centuries and thousands of different mouths. He was a fantastic symbol of how kind and selfless a human being could be, but I definitely wouldn't categorize him as the greatest orator. That is one thing we sadly won't ever know...

That is, until Doc Brown perfects that Mr. Fusion and tricks out his Delorean.

kou

01-13-2009, 10:20 PM

jesus couldnt even talk his way out of crucifixion...blasphemy you say. there are other religions way before that of jesus and the jews. Zoroastrian religion was around 6 century B.C and is pretty much what every other religion is based on,all stories to control the will of man.

KCALB SIRAY

01-13-2009, 11:48 PM

Anywho...the post

dlinkwit27

01-14-2009, 12:47 AM

You say you don't want to get in an argument, but you're essentially putting down the person whom you quoted with your own quote. I'm just sayin'...

he thinks he is being clever. I will try to.

"As empty vessels make the loudest sound, so they that have least wit are the greatest babblers."
–Plato

Now let us all see who has the most posts in this thread.

So far I think bob is in the lead with around 8.

GeneW

01-14-2009, 06:03 AM

Hmmmmm :wink: Is there a lesson here?

"It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government. It is time for us to realize that we're too great a nation to limit ourselves to small dreams. We're not, as some would have us believe, doomed to an inevitable decline. I do not believe in a fate that will fall on us no matter what we do. I do believe in a fate that will fall on us if we do nothing. So, with all the creative energy at our command, let us begin an era of national renewal. Let us renew our determination, our courage, and our strength. And let us renew our faith and our hope." -- Ronald Reagan's first inaugural address on Jan. 20, 1981.

I voted for Reagan in 1980. Figured that "Morning in America" was the real thing. Went through hell at school from lefties, I was at CMU when conservative was synonymous with idiot.

The Russians were in Afghanistan and almost everywhere else. The world was falling apart. Stagflation, misery index, the works. Jimmy Carter looked like a dimwit in his sweaters, talking of malaise and tolerating gasoline lines. Meanwhile each night the news shows counted up the days that US diplomats were in captivity.

Reagan seemed like a savior under such conditions.

I carried water for the "War on Drugs", the Nicaraguan Resistance and a lot of the other stuff. Figured it was to save society and freedom. Nothing illegal or illicit, just common garden ward heeling.

We started to dismantle some of the crazy Carter era stuff. The gas lines soon went away, but yeah, gasoline cost a little more.

Figured that ending investment in coal gasification was being prudent, wish now that we'd kept it going. It wasn't a satrapy, it was simply ahead of its time.

The War on Drugs turned into a disaster. More people in jail today than ever in history. Entire towns are cooking Meth and Mexico is turning into a shooting gallery over drugs. Just like the last time the US tried this crap, back in 1917 when liquor was outlawed.

The Nicaraguan Resistance was left to die in the field. Today Daniel Ortega Saavedra is in power, except instead of dialectical materialism he is into revolutionary theology. One wonders what it was all about?

The military Reagan built to stop the Soviets was pissed away in Kuwait and then dissipated by Clinton in "reinventing Government". What is left is being destroyed by being an occupation force rather than a deterrent to Soviet invasion - which was the damned point in 1982.

The Soviet Union collapsed, Clinton and Tony Lake held the people down while Marc Rich raped them, and then the US pissed off the Russians by bombing Serbia. The GOP didn't left a finger to stop it. Today Russians are generally suspicious of the US, which isn't surprising given our antics in the former Eastern Europe. We promised them that we would not expand NATO, but instead we're whittling away land and populations that have been under Russian influence for centuries.

Domestically we got something call "Civil Forfeiture". Reagan signed away our ability to register new machineguns in 1986, his successor worked to ban ugly firearms and Reagan personally lobbied Congress to pass the Feinstein ban in 1993. I guess all of this talk of Freedom was the freedom to be good little boys and girls and obey? Don't think so.

Today we have a massive debt. The Republicans couldn't spend money any wiser than the Democrats. We're stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I don't smile too much thinking of Reagan. Nothing personal, Bob, but I literally bled for those people and all I have to show for it are memories, a few scars and a bad taste in my mouth.

Obama? I don't think he has even understands the problem let alone how to solve it. Spending our way to prosperity is like putting out fires with gasoline. Ron Paul might have made a nice President but he's too "radical" for the tastes of our betters.

Gene

GeneW

01-14-2009, 06:59 AM

No one is denying that President-Elect Obama is a really bright guy, probably the most educated president in the history of the nation.

Woodrow Wilson gained a PhD in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University in 1883, back in a time when PhDs were not given away, there was no grade inflation and Presbyterian boys from Rebel States (Wilson came from South Carolina and had survived Reconstruction) were not cut much slack in Baltimore.

Wilson taught at Bryn Mawr College, Wesleyan University, and Princeton. He eventually became President of Princeton before going into New Jersey State Politics.

No way in hell can you claim that a PhD in Poly Sci from Johns Hopkins awarded in 1886 is less than a JD from Harvard awarded in 1991. To this day Wilson is the only President who has achieved a PhD.

FWIW, George Bush Jr may be the only US President who has ever achieved a Masters Degree. Yes, Bush has a Harvard Business School MBA. They're not given away like tickets to the homecoming game. Gotta earn 'em.

I'm gonna ask it - why does a JD from Harvard and a BA from Columbia give Obama the prerogatives to be President but a BA from Yale and an MBA from Harvard does not qualify Bush for anything in particular? Both men achieved post graduate degrees from the very same school - why is Obama better? His progressive credentials? His cult of personality? Maybe some covert racism from some people who consider a man of color achieving so much to be a marvel of sorts?

Where I come from lawyers are not necessarily better Presidents. Richard Nixon and Abraham Lincoln come to mind.

I realize that it is very difficult for a young person to achieve much before they decide to run for President.

Bill Clinton managed to serve two terms as Arkansas Governor and one term as Arkansas Attorney General. He also taught Constitutional Law at the University of Arkansas. I don't consider him a good President but that's due to my own convictions - I'm not sure that his opponents would have done any better.

John Kennedy, who was a young man when he decided to run for President, actually accomplished a few things in the Senate before he opted to run for President. Ironically this included supplementing the Kefauver hearings with his own hearings on organized crime and helping to lead US support for a free Algeria.

Obama owed it to himself to achieve a few things besides three terms in the Illinois legislature, part of a US Senate term, teaching Constitutional Law classes, running a "Community Activist" organization, trying a handful of cases and doing clerical work on several more at one Chicago law firm.

If he had any damned sense he would have done a bit more case law in Civil Rights, maybe work a bit more with running poverty programs in Chicago and Detroit. Definitely do something practical before jumping into politics.

I think if Obama's Presidency achieves much it's going to be in spite of his lack of practical experience in executive management.

I think one thing we can rule out right away - nobody is gonna get their gas tanks filled up and their mortgages paid by Obama.

Gene