STILL RULES

Obama has pre-released his scrubbed schoolhouse speech, and without the Dear Leader-stuff, it’s mostly not bad. For a communist. But it’s always Cow Pie A la Mode with these guys–even with 10 gallons of ice cream on top, there’s always a tasty surprise at the bottom if you dig long enough.

But Cold Fury’s stringent Fairness Doctrine demands that we must now hear from an anti-communist.

Remarks and a Question-and-Answer Session With Area Junior High School Students, November 14, 1988

The President: You know, this is a real treat for me — having you here and to have, in a little while, the chance to answer some of your questions. Let me also offer a special hello to those of you who are watching on C-SPAN. Thank you for inviting us into your home or your school today.

I’m particularly pleased to be talking to American students in this, the first in a series of speeches that I’ll be giving before I leave office.

Last week the American people freely elected our government. Some ballots were cast by people who were rich and famous, and others were cast by most ordinary people, but each person had the same, one vote. These ballots were cast in secret, and they were counted in the open, not the other way around. What we in America take for granted is something that’s rare in history and all too remarkable on this globe, the Earth.

And it’s not just that our government is the oldest of its kind, but that it’s based on the world’s most revolutionary political idea. You can see that concept in the very first line of our Constitution, and it begins with three simple words: “We the People.” In other countries, in their constitutions — they all have constitutions, and I’ve read a great many of them, those other ones — and the difference is so small, but it’s found in those three words. Because their constitutions are documents by the Governments telling the people what they can do. And in our country, our Constitution is by the people, and it tells the Government what it can do. And only those things listed in the Constitution, and nothing else, can Government do. So, in America, it is the people who are in charge. And one day you’ll be those people out there voting and creating the Government.

Now, the Revolution may seem like something they say happened a long time ago — to me 200 years seems just like yesterday — but I think it’ll prove to be America’s most important guidepost for the future. I believe that the chief moral task for America in your generation — a period destined for great change — will be not so much to chart a new course or launch a new revolution, but to keep faith with the original American Revolution and that remarkable vision of freedom that has brought us two centuries of liberty and is still today transforming the world.

It’s remarkable to realize that in this century even brutal totalitarian dictatorships kneel at the feet of our Founding Fathers when they try to counterfeit the practices and institutions of democracy in order to claim legitimacy for their ruling their people. Dictators today from Afghanistan to Nicaragua do not want to be called Czar or Commissar; they want to be called Mr. President and to pretend that they rule in the people’s name, even if they don’t. Yes, even Communist dictators holding power through force, against the will of the people, acknowledge the triumph of the American idea when they go through the motions of holding phony elections, forming rubberstamp legislatures to ratify constitutions that will not be honored, and then using our words to call their regimes democracies or republics.

These days, whenever I see foreign leaders, they tell me about their plans for reducing taxes and other economic reforms that they’re using, copying what we have done here in our country. I wonder if they realize that this vision of economic freedom — the freedom to work, to create and produce, to own and use property without the interference of the state — was central to the American Revolution when the American colonists rebelled against a whole web of economic restrictions, taxes, and barriers to free trade. The message at the Boston Tea Party — have you studied yet in history about the Boston Tea Party, where, because of a tax, they went down and dumped the tea in the harbor? Well, that was America ’s original tax revolt. And it was the fruits of our labor — belonged to us, and not to the state. And that truth is fundamental to both liberty and prosperity.

You know, I’ve seen remarkable technological change in my lifetime. Maybe I’m just going to date myself as belonging back with the dinosaurs or something when I tell you this, but just think, I can still remember my first ride in an automobile. Before cars, we went by horse and buggy. The horse was very fuel-efficient but kind of slow. And if you wanted to supercharge one, you fed him an extra bag of oats.

But in pursuing your education, there is one thing I would like to pass along to you. We should always remember that there are the things that change and the things that don’t change. The machines will change — the horse and buggy to the automobile and so forth — but the people don’t. The permanent truths which give meaning to our lives don’t change; they are, as I say, permanent. The basic values of faith and family will be just as true when people are living on distant planets as they are today.

So, for America to gain greatest benefit from all the exciting new technologies that lie ahead, we will also need to reaffirm our traditional moral values, because these values are the foundation on which everything we do is built. So, yes, I would encourage you to study the math and science that are at the basis of the new technologies. But in a world of change you also need to pay attention to the moral and spiritual values that will stay with you, unchanged, throughout a long lifetime.

And we’re entering one of the most exciting times in history, a time of unlimited possibilities, bounded only by the size of your imagination, the depth of your heart, and the character of your courage. More than two centuries of American history — the contributions of the millions of people who have come before us have been given to us as our birthright.

All we can do to earn what we’ve received is to dream large dreams, to live lives of kindness, and to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America.

Now it’s time for me to ask you for your questions, but first I’d like to ask you one: What are some of the things that you’re proudest of and some of the things that are best about America? And maybe I can just take a couple of comments if someone has a comment to make.

Q. My name is Chris Allen. I’m from Poolesville Junior-Senior High School. I was just wondering what you and Mrs. Reagan feel about the new gun ban law.

A. I got the strangest letter when I was Governor. There was talk about having a gun ban in California. It didn’t go through. But I got a letter from a man in San Quentin prison, and from the prison he wrote me the letter to tell me he was in there for burglary. He was a burglar. And he said, “I just want you to know that if that law goes through, here in San Quentin there will be celebrating throughout the day and night by all the burglars who are in prison because” he said, “we can watch a house we plan to rob for days. We can learn the habits of the people living in that house, to know when is the best time to go in and be a burglar — rob it.” He said, “The only question we can never answer is: Does the man in that house have a gun in the drawer by his bed?” He said, “That’s a risk we have to run.” He said, “If you tell us in advance they won’t have a gun in that drawer by their bed,” he said, “the burglars in here will be celebrating forevermore.”

I thought he made kind of some common sense. And I don’t know why to this day he ever chose to send the letter to me.

We don’t mind when a peaceful democratic country has modern weapons. But, if our name is not “Barack Obama”, we mind when a tyranny acquires those same weapons. It’s not the weapon, it’s the regime.

Similarly, we don’t mind when a reasonable politician talks to schoolkids; but we balk when one we don’t trust tries. Especially one who has been busily insulting half the parents in the country. And especially when he has a Castro-esque need to speechify and a creepy whiff of Dear Leaderism about him.

Love him or hate him, everybody knew Ronald Reagan loved America to the bone. Barack Obama loves the sound of his own voice.

Get away from my kid, creep.

(Hat-tip: DrewM.)