From Dr. Steven Metz at the Ronald Reagan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz:
Those who claim to be the inheritors of the Reagan revolution badly misunderstand it. It was never about specific policies but tone and style. It won out over both Democrats and Communists because it offered better ideas and-importantly-a positive vision. Reagan was much less interested in discrediting his opponents than in inspiring supporters.
Led by Newt Gingrich and taken to hysterical heights by pundits such as Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck, Reagan’s better ideas and positive vision gave way to deep negativity. Rather than better ideas, they offer only an unending spew of attacks against Democrats and the political left.
The commentary on the Egypt crisis by those who would claim to be Reagan’s descendents is a perfect illustration. Nearly everything they say at least begins with a slam on the Democrats, especially Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama. Making the Middle East more stable and furthering American interests is almost an afterthought, tacked on after the flames directed at the Democrats….
….I was 12 when Reagan got elected and the one thing that I noticed right off the bat was that it was “cool” to be an American again. Flags started to be flown more. Reagan told us repeatedly that yes, things were hosed up, but that was OK. We were Americans and we could fix it. We could fix anything. It was OK to like God. It was good to salute our military members.
We were going to take on the Russians and win. I remember asking my dad when I was a young boy if the Russians would blow us up. He always himmed and hawed with his answers. I asked him the same thing after Reagan got elected. My dad said “no way”. “Reagan won’t mess around with them.”
When Reagan was elected, my dad was struggling with his business. He would make his payments but interest rates were so high that he was going in the hole. By the time Reagan was gone and in the aftermath, things were calmed down and his business was doing very well and is to this day. He still thanks Reagan for that. It may or may not be true, but that is what he thinks and so be it.
Ronald Wilson Reagan (1911 – 2004) 40th President of the United States of America
Welcome to the Ronald Reagan Roundtable at Chicago Boyz.
A few presidents have put their stamp on this nation and even fewer have done so on the world. While the top tier historical position is held, by nearly universal accalamation, by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a select number of presidents occupy the second tier of greatness, having by their words and deeds changed America and their times, for better and for worse. Among this group, I believe, is Ronald Wilson Reagan, who entered office as the oldest man ever to be elected to the presidency and left it when a new world was being born.
Ronald Reagan would be 100 years old today, having missed the mark by a mere seven years. It would be too much to say that this has been the century of Ronald Reagan, but we should take time on this anniversary to reflect on how Reagan impacted his century. What is the legacy of President Reagan? That is the question for this roundtable, one we hope to answer in the next ten days.
All Chicago Boyz bloggers, whose names appear on the margin – including but not limited to Lexington Green, Joseph Fouche, Jonathan, Charles Cameron, Onparkstreet and Dr Helen Szamuely –are free to weigh in on this question, but we are very pleased to also have some special guest bloggers as participants in this roundtable who I would like to take a moment and introduce:
Dr. Steven Metz: Dr. Steven Metz is Chairman of the Regional Strategy and Planning Department and Research Professor of National Security Affairs at the Strategic Studies Institute. Dr. Metz has a distinguished academic career and has served on numerous government and private sector advisory panels for national security and military affairs. He currently serves on the RAND Corporation Insurgency Board and blogs for The New Republic and National Journal. Metz. is the author of Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy and is working on a book entitled “Strategic Shock: Eight Events That Changed American Security.”
Steve Schippert: is a co-Founder of ThreatsWatch and of the Center for Threat Awareness where he serves on the Board of Directors. Steve is the Managing Editor of ThreatsWatch and is the Producer of its FireWatch program. Steve served in the U.S. Marine Corps from June 1985 to June 1993, including service during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm to liberate Kuwait. Steve has also been published in the Washington Times and online at the Weekly Standard and the National Review and is currently a regular contributor at National Review Online’s MilBlog, The Tank. Steve is Crane Durham’s terrorism and national security expert on Durham’s Nothing But Truth daily national radio broadcast on the American Family Radio Network. Steve has also provided terrorism, security and military analysis on The Hugh Hewitt Show, The John Batchelor Show, The Martha Zoller Show and others, and his written work has been featured on MSNBC.
Joseph Guerra: is a former US Marine and Army intelligence officer who served in a civilian capacity in Berlin during the last decade of the Cold War. Guerra was involved as both an intelligence operations specialist and an operations officer in strategic overt humint collection and now blogs and posts on the internet under the moniker “seydlitz89″ and can be contacted at seydlitz89 at web.de. He lives with his family in northern Portugal and works in education. His latest paper is, “The Clausewitzian Concept of Cohesion as a Theory of Political Development,” which was developed from one of his posts on the Chicagoboyz Clausewitz Roundtable. His writings have appeared at Clausewitz.com, Defense and the National Interest and Milpub.
Shane Deichman: has spent nearly two decades in the national security field as both a scientist and a manager. He is a 1994 graduate of the U.S. Naval War College. He spent four years in the Fleet Marine Force as a science and technology advisor. Shane founded his own company in 2008 (EMC2 LLC, a consulting company focused on emergency management and disaster preparedness) and is a consultant at the National Missile Defense Agency. He blogs atWizards of Oz, Dreaming 5GW, and Antilibrary and was a contributing author to The John Boyd Roundtable.
Historyguy99: is a historian, and U.S. Army veteran of the war in Vietnam. After having a 30 year career in global logistics, he earned an advanced degree in history and began to teach. Currently he is an adjunct history professor with the University of Phoenix and Axia College. He blogs as historyguy99 and hosts HG’s World, a blog devoted to history, connectivity, and commentary. He is a co-author of soon to be published, Activist Women of the American West and contributing author to The John Boyd Roundtable.
James Frayne: James Frayne is a London-based political consultant. Over the last ten years he has worked on a number of high profile political campaigns and has advised many of the world’s best known brands on their communications and strategy. James edits the blog, The Campaign War Room.
[Note: Cheryl Rofer has graced Chicago Boyz on several occasions and may participate in this roundtable as time permits]
Cheryl Rofer: Cheryl’s career has moved from the hard sciences to the social sciences, the hard sciences informing her analysis of international relations. With an A.B. from Ripon College and an M.S. from the University of California at Berkeley, both in chemistry, she has worked on the nuclear fuel cycle, fossil fuels, lasers, technologies for destruction of hazardous wastes and decommissioning of nuclear weapons, and management of environmental cleanups from New Mexico to Estonia and Kazakhstan. Her travels have taken her to both countries, and she is learning Estonian. She blogs at Phronesisaical.
As previously announced, to commemorate the 100th birthday of President Ronald Wilson Reagan, there will be a Roundtable hosted at Chicago Boyz blog starting February 6th featuring the stable of Chicago Boyz contributors and an august panel of invited guest-posters from a range of philosophical perspectives and disciplinary backgrounds.
On Saturday night, I will put up the introductory post, highlighting our guest posters and making some remarks appropriate for the occasion, after which, participants are free to post as often or at whatever length they deem sufficient until February 16th, at which point the roundtable will come to a close. I will be linking to all posts here at ZP and I encourage my readers to visit Chicago Boyz and comment there directly.
Sunday, is of course, aside from Reagan’s 100th birthday, the Superbowl. I think President Reagan would have liked that coincidence, given his most famous movie role, to have his centennial be associated with America’s hallowed day of football. It also allows me to say that with this Roundtable, regardless of the participants’ take or clash of views, we will accomplish one thing:
Zenpundit is a blog dedicated to exploring the intersections of foreign policy, history, military theory, national security,strategic thinking, futurism, cognition and a number of other esoteric pursuits.
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