Reagans Quote on His Plans for America Reagan Quote Make America Great Again
Transcript of Reagan's Farewell Accost to American People
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January 12, 1989
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Following is a transcript of President Reagan'due south speech to the nation last night from the White House, as recorded by The New York Times:
My beau Americans, this is the 34th time I'll speak to you from the Oval Office, and the concluding. We've been together viii years now, and soon information technology'll be time for me to go. But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I take been saving for a long time.
It's been the honor of my life to exist your President. So many of you accept written the by few weeks to say thanks, merely I could say as much to you. Nancy and I are grateful for the opportunity y'all gave usa to serve.
1 of the things about the Presidency is that you lot're always somewhat apart. You lot spend a lot of fourth dimension going by too fast in a car someone else is driving, and seeing the people through tinted drinking glass - the parents property up a child, and the wave you saw besides late and couldn't return. And so many times I wanted to terminate, and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well, maybe I tin can practise a little of that tonight.
People inquire how I feel about leaving, and the fact is parting is "such sweet sorrow." The sweet role is California, and the ranch, and freedom. The sorrow? The goodbyes, of course, and leaving this cute place.
You know, downward the hall and up the stairs from this function is the part of the White House where the President and his family alive. There are a few favorite windows I accept upward there that I like to stand up and await out of early on in the forenoon. The view is over the grounds here to the Washington Monument, and and then the Mall, and the Jefferson Memorial. But on mornings when the humidity is depression, you lot tin can run into past the Jefferson to the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said that'south the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke ascension from the battle of Bull Run. Well, I come across more than prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their style to work, at present and then a sailboat on the river. Reflections at a Window
I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been reflecting on what the by eight years take meant, and mean. And the image that comes to heed similar a refrain is a nautical one - a small story almost a big ship, and a refugee, and a crewman.
It was back in the early Eighties, at the meridian of the boat people, and the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the Southward China Body of water. The sailor, like most American servicemen, was immature, smart and fiercely observant. The coiffure spied on the horizon a leaky little gunkhole - and crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the send, and safety. Every bit the refugees made their style through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood upwards and called out to him. He yelled, "Hello, American sailor - Hullo, Freedom Man."
A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the crewman, who wrote it in a letter of the alphabet, couldn't exit of his mind. And, when I saw information technology, neither could I.
Because that's what it has to - it was to be an American in the 1980'southward; We stood, again, for liberty. I know we always take just in the past few years the globe - again, and in a way, nosotros ourselves - rediscovered it.
It's been quite a journey this decade, and we held together through some stormy seas. And at the stop, together, nosotros are reaching our destination.
The fact is, from Grenada to the Washington and Moscow summits, from the recession of '81 to '82 to the expansion that began in belatedly '82 and continues to this twenty-four hour period, we've made a difference. Two Groovy Triumphs
The way I see information technology, at that place were 2 great triumphs, ii things that I'one thousand proudest of. I is the economical recovery, in which the people of America created - and filled - nineteen one thousand thousand new jobs. The other is the recovery of our morale: America is respected again in the globe, and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economical summit, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of authorities of the seven industrialized nations. Well, I saturday there similar the new kid in schoolhouse and listened, and it was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to ane some other on a first-proper name basis. Well, at ane point I sort of leaned in and said, "My name'southward Ron."
Well, in that aforementioned year, nosotros began the actions we felt would ignite an economical improvement: cut taxes and regulation, started to cutting spending. Presently the recovery began.
Two years later, another economical summit, with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting, we all got together, and all of a sudden just for a moment I saw that everyone was but sitting there looking at me. And then one of them broke the silence. "Tell united states of america most the American miracle," he said.
Well, back in 1980, when I was running for President, it was all so unlike. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our views on strange diplomacy would cause war, our plans for the economic system would cause inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I fifty-fifty think one highly respected economist saying, back in 1982, that "The engines of economical growth take shut down here and they're likely to stay that fashion for years to come."
Well, he - and the other "opinion leaders" - were incorrect. The fact is, what they called "radical" was really "correct"; what they called "unsafe" was just "desperately needed." 'The Great Communicator'
And in all that fourth dimension I won a nickname - "The Smashing Communicator." Simply I never thought it was my mode or the words I used that fabricated a difference - it was the content. I wasn't a bang-up communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn't spring full blossom from my brow, they came from the centre of a bang-up nation - from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that accept guided us for two centuries.
They called information technology the Reagan Revolution, and I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed more like the Nifty Rediscovery: a rediscovery of our values and our common sense.
Common sense told u.s. that when you put a large tax on something, the people volition produce less of it. So nosotros cut the people's taxation rates, and the people produced more than e'er before. The economic system bloomed like a plant that had been cutting back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family unit income upwardly, the poverty charge per unit down, entrepreneurship booming and an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more now than ever because American industry became more competitive, and at the same time we summoned the national volition to knock downwards protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at dwelling house.
Common sense likewise told us that to preserve the peace we'd have to get strong once again after years of weakness and confusion. So we rebuilt our defenses - and this New Twelvemonth we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Non only take the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons - and hope for even more progress is bright - merely the regional conflicts that rack the globe are likewise beginning to terminate. The Farsi Gulf is no longer a war zone, the Soviets are leaving Afghanistan, the Vietnamese are preparing to pull out of Kingdom of cambodia and an American-mediated accord will before long send 50,000 Cuban troops home from Angola. 'We Changed a World'
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a groovy nation, our challenges seem complex. Information technology will always be this mode. Just every bit long equally nosotros retrieve our outset principles and believe in ourselves, the future will ever exist ours.
And something else we learned: once you begin a smashing move, there'south no telling where it'll end. We meant to modify a nation, and instead, we changed a world.
Countries across the earth are turning to costless markets and complimentary speech - and turning away from the ideologies of the by. For them, the Great Rediscovery of the 1980'south has been that, lo and behold, the moral mode of government is the practical manner of regime. Democracy, the profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.
When you've got to the point where you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 39th birthday you lot can sit dorsum sometimes, review your life and see it flowing before y'all. For me, there was a fork in the river, and information technology was correct in the middle of my life.
I never meant to go into politics: it wasn't my intention when I was immature. Simply I was raised to believe you had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with my career in the entertainment world, simply I ultimately went into politics because I wanted to protect something precious. 'We the People'
Ours was the first revolution in the history of flesh that truly reversed the course of government, and with iii little words: "We the People."
"We the People" tell the Government what to do, it doesn't tell us. "We the people" are the driver - the Government is the car. And nosotros decide where information technology should go, and by what route, and how fast. Near all the earth's constitutions are documents in which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution is a document in which "We the People" tell the Government what it is immune to do. "We the people" are complimentary.
This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I tried to practise these past eight years.
But back in the 1960's when I began, it seemed to me that we'd begun reversing the lodge of things - that through more and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the Government was taking more of our freedom. I went into politics in part to put up my paw and say, "Stop!" I was a citizen-politician, and it seemed the correct affair for a citizen to practise.
I think we take stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once more reminded people that human being is not gratuitous unless government is express. At that place's a clear cause and effect here that is every bit neat and predictable as a law of physics: as authorities expands, liberty contracts. Deportment Based on Deeds
Cipher is less complimentary than pure communism, and yet nosotros have, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've been asked if this isn't a hazard, and my answer is no, because we're basing our deportment not on words but deeds.
The detente of the 1970's was based not on actions merely promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and the people of the earth amend, but the gulag was however the gulag, and the state was withal expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Well, this time, so far, it's different: President Gorbachev has brought about some internal democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has likewise freed prisoners whose names I've given him every fourth dimension we've met.
Just life has a way of reminding you of big things through modest incidents. Once, during the heady days of the Moscow Summit, Nancy and I decided to pause off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops on Arbat Street - that's a little street just off Moscow's main shopping area.
Fifty-fifty though our visit was a surprise, every Russian there immediately recognized us, and called out our names and reached for our easily. We were only nigh swept away past the warmth - you could nearly feel the possibilities in all that joy. Only inside seconds, a K.G.B. detail pushed their way toward u.s. and began pushing and shoving the people in the crowd. It was an interesting moment. It reminded me that while the man on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the Government is Communist - and those who run it are Communists - and that means we and they view such issues as liberty and human rights very differently. 'Go on Up Our Guard'
Nosotros must go on upwardly our guard - simply we must also go along to work together to lessen and eliminate tension and mistrust.
My view is that President Gorbachev is dissimilar from previous Soviet leaders. I think he knows some of the things wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. We wish him well. And nosotros'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet Marriage that eventually emerges from this process is a less threatening 1.
What information technology all boils down to is this: I want the new closeness to continue. And information technology will every bit long equally we get in articulate that we volition go on to deed in a certain style as long equally they continue to act in a helpful manner. If and when they don't - at first pull your punches. If they persist, pull the plug.
It'due south still trust - only verify.
It's still play - just cut the cards.
It's still watch closely - and don't exist afraid to run across what you run into.
I've been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do.
The deficit is one. I've been talking a groovy deal about that lately, but tonight isn't for arguments, and I'thou going to agree my tongue.
But an observation: I've had my share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops; they never saw Reagan'due south Regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you lot made and alphabetic character y'all wrote demanding action. Much to Be Washed
Well, activity is however needed. If we're to finish the job, of Reagan'southward Regiments, we'll have to become the Bush Brigades. Soon he'll exist the main, and he'll need you equally equally much as I did.
Finally, at that place is a keen tradition of warnings in Presidential farewells, and I've got one that'south been on my mind for some time.
But oddly enough it starts with ane of the things I'thousand proudest of in the past eight years; the resurgence of national pride that I called "the new patriotism." This national feeling is skilful, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless information technology's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An informed patriotism is what we desire. And are we doing a practiced enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the long history of the world?
Those of u.s. who are over 35 or so years of age grew upwards in a dissimilar America. We were taught, very direct, what it means to exist an American, and we absorbed about in the air a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you lot didn't get these things from your family you got them from the neighborhood, from the begetter downward the street who fought in Korea or the family unit who lost someone at Anzio. Or y'all could go a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed, y'all could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies historic democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-Sixties. Ahead, to the Nineties
But now we're about to enter the Nineties, and some things accept changed. Younger parents aren't certain that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach mod children. And as for those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.
Our spirit is dorsum, just nosotros haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a improve job of getting across that America is freedom - freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise - and freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.
We've got to teach history based non on what's in fashion but what's important: Why the pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those thirty seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, four years ago, on the 40th anniversary of D-Day. I read a letter from a immature woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Embankment. Her proper name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, nosotros will always remember, we volition never forget what the boys of Normandy did. Well, let'due south aid her keep her give-and-take.
If nosotros forget what we did, nosotros won't know who we are. I am warning of an eradication of that - of the American retentiveness that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.
Allow's start with some nuts - more attention to American history and a greater emphasis of civic ritual. And permit me offer lesson No. i near America : All bang-up modify in America begins at the dinner table. So tomorrow night in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents oasis't been educational activity you what it means to be an American - permit 'em know and smash 'em on it. That would exist a very American thing to do.
And that's virtually all I take to say tonight. Except for 1 thing.
The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a flake of the shining "city upon a colina." The phrase comes from John Winthrop, who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined was important, because he was an early Pilgrim - an early "Freedom Homo." He journeyed here on what today we'd call a petty wooden boat, and, similar the other pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I've spoken of the shining metropolis all my political life, but I don't know if I always quite communicated what I saw when I said it. Merely in my listen, it was a tall proud metropolis congenital on rocks stronger than oceans, current of air swept, God blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace - a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be urban center walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to go here.
That'due south how I saw it, and see it even so. How Stands the Metropolis?
And how stands the city on this wintertime night? More than prosperous, more secure and happier than it was viii years ago. But more than that: after 200 years, two centuries, she notwithstanding stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no affair what storm.
And she's withal a beacon, yet a magnet for all who must take freedom, for all the Pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home.
We've washed our role. And as I "walk off into the urban center streets," a terminal give-and-take to the men and women of the Reagan Revolution - the men and women across America who for viii years did the work that brought America back:
My friends, we did it. We weren't simply marker fourth dimension, we fabricated a difference. We made the city stronger - we fabricated the city freer - and nosotros left her in proficient hands.
All in all, cracking. Dandy at all.
And then, adieu.
God bless you. And God bless the Usa.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/12/news/transcript-of-reagan-s-farewell-address-to-american-people.html
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