"A statue of Ronald Reagan is to be unveiled in London's Grosvenor Square, as part of a year of celebrations to mark the 100th birthday of the former US president. The 10 foot bronze will be positioned on a pedestal close to the American Embassy, and stand alongside existing statues of two other 20th Century US leaders, Dwight Eisenhower and Franklin D Roosevelt. With the unveiling scheduled for July 4, US Independence Day, the Ronald Reagan Foundation has invited Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron to attend the ceremony. Condoleezza Rice, the former US secretary of state who worked for the Pentagon during Mr Reagan's presidency, will represent Nancy Reagan, 89, who will be following proceedings from her Californian home."
For those of you old enough to remember the 1980 Presidential election, Ronald Reagan ran as a conservative Republican. The oldest man to be elected to the position, may feared him and his principles, including myself, in which he "advocated reducing tax rates to spur economic growth, controlling the money supply to reduce inflation, deregulation of the economy, and reducing government spending. In his first term he ... took a hard line against labor unions..." These are all positions I believe in now. Back then, I was a twenty-year old liberal agnostic abortion advocate scared to death of a Reagan presidency but having an antipathy to four more years of Jimmy Carter and inflation. If I remember right, I voted for John Anderson even though he was conservative because I've always believed in working toward a third party candidate and the other two candidates were just awful in my opinion.
Of course, we all know what happened. Reagan was a great president. Those people who were not clouded by liberal thought knew he would be great from the beginning, and history bears this out.
Particularly estimable was Reagan and UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's relationship. Both politicians held the same philosophical outlook in governing. They furthered the close relationship that John Adams brilliantly and humbly set the course for back in 1785 when the victorious and newly formed United States met with our former Kin,g George III.
As I look on this Fourth of July holiday today, I can't help but be filled with melancholy. The bright future that won Reagan the re-election, "Morning in America: Prouder, Stronger, Better" came as an optimistic note after the dour and malaise-filled failed Carter Presidency. Reagan's staunch stand against communism was the force that caused it to fail and the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, shortly after Reagan left office. He had stood at Germany's Brandenburg Gate and challenged Russian President Gorbachev to "Tear down this wall!" It was a decade of US hegemony, respect, and where we did Good and were known to do Good in the world.
Twenty-one years later Obama (tried to stand) at the Brandenburg Gate and gave a speech apologizing for all of the above. With our current Oval Office occupier, we have lost the economy, lost our moral stand in the world, lost our way. We place Israel on the terror nation list and invite terrorists in the Muslim Brotherhood to the diplomatic table. Down is up and up is down.
I'm sad for the loss of solidity of the Constitution. It is a crumbling and increasingly transparent document now, being constantly chipped away at and outright ignored. It is a document that used to be a granite foundation for our country but now is simply a ghostly vapor. I miss the bright morning rays over the cornfields in the Morning in America campaign ads that I once was fearful of but know better now. I miss all that, but one important thing has changed with me since 'Morning In America' turned to dusk.
I am saved by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. Though I mourn the place America used to be, I know that she is not my ultimate home. America fulfilled many promises in her work for the Lord, and even in these evil days she is still doing so. I've replaced the State of Liberty with the Cross as my most revered emblem. It might be dusk in America now, with only the bronze statue of Reagan across the sea to remind us of our once glorious days not so long ago, but in Jesus's heaven, every day is morning, bright and filled with His glory. My independence day is December 3, 2003, the day Jesus set me free from my bondage of sin. I became truly free that day and I hope as you celebrate this nation's Independence, that you ponder your eternal morning, and where you will spend it.
