by Victor Davis Hanson<\/p>\n
Private Papers<\/em><\/p>\n Reagan’s achievement and legacy are twofold, but do not necessarily lie in either his legislative record or seminal foreign policy initiatives-although it is hard to believe few other presidents would have gone ahead with the substantial tax cuts, necessary Pershing missile deployments, the decision to fund missile defense, or his reconstruction of our military forces.<\/span><\/p>\n First, he halted the incremental and insidious growth in rates of taxation and indeed questioned our accepted faith in ever larger government. While deficits resulted and government itself grew nonetheless, at least he established the principle that the United States would not follow the path of European socialism, and would be aware of the peril posed by statist, utopian, pacifist, and welfare systems. That we are not like a struggling, centrally-planned France and Germany today is in large part due to his life-long warning and public service.<\/span><\/p>\n Second, he restored an honesty of expression in government and tried to stop the encroaching debasement of language; “tear down this wall”\u00a0 and “evil empire” shocked our establishment elite, but few doubted either that there really was a wall in Berlin and or that the Soviet Union was both evil and an empire. And out of that honest confidence in American exceptionalism grew a number of good things.<\/span><\/p>\n He hastened the fall of the Soviet Union. We could not have been able to have fought Gulf War I without his prior commitment to reconstituting our forces; he established the principle we would support democracy and be active in its promotion, whether in undermining leftist thugs like the Ortegas or rightist tyrants like Noriega and Marcos. Like Clinton he was a great communicator, and like Clinton again, he sometimes compromised and moved to the center; but unlike the latter, he had a sense of core beliefs that remained unchanged and would not be sacrificed to the politics of the day. And it showed-and thus he will be remembered (even by Democrats) far more favorably than will be the similarly two-termed and glib Bill Clinton.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a9 2004 Victor Davis Hanson<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Victor Davis Hanson Private Papers Reagan’s achievement and legacy are twofold, but do not necessarily lie in either his legislative record or seminal foreign policy initiatives-although it is hard to believe few other presidents would have gone ahead with the substantial tax cuts, necessary Pershing missile deployments, the decision to fund missile defense, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[801],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1dx","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10655,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/10655-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":4683,"position":0},"title":"From An Angry Reader: Mr.\u2026","author":"victorhanson","date":"October 5, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"From An Angry Reader: Mr. Hanson, I read your opinion piece in Newsweek and wanted to respond. I wish you\u2019d included numbers, information on programs and systems, budget levels, and other trends, rather than just a few quotes. Funding within the DoD always fluctuates, given whatever is the shiny new\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Angry Reader"","block_context":{"text":"Angry Reader","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/angry-reader\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2696,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/israels-cuban-missile-crisis-all-the-time\/","url_meta":{"origin":4683,"position":1},"title":"Israel’s Cuban Missile Crisis–All the Time","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson Tribune Media Services Why would the Iranian government spend billions of dollars on trying to develop a few first-generation nuclear bombs (as nearly everyone believes is the case) when the country is so poor that it has to ration gasoline? A lot of reasons have been\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "June 2009"","block_context":{"text":"June 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/june-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9325,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/a-year-after-the-iranian-deal\/","url_meta":{"origin":4683,"position":2},"title":"A Year After the Iranian Deal","author":"victorhanson","date":"May 27, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"By Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Strategika \u00a0 Image credit: Poster Collection, IR 180, Hoover Institution Archives. The July 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action to limit Iranian nuclear proliferation is now nearly a year old. Until recently, the urgency to complete the \u201cIran deal\u201d had been explained by the Obama\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Strategika"","block_context":{"text":"Strategika","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/strategika\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2617,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/obama-ii-vs-obama-i\/","url_meta":{"origin":4683,"position":3},"title":"Obama II vs. Obama I","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 3, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson NRO's\u00a0The Corner I\u00a0don't think it has occurred to the divine ones that the administration now is at odds with the sort of ideology and attitudes Obama himself espoused on the campaign trail. They call for patience and for confidence in Iraq \u2014 and not, in prior\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "July 2009"","block_context":{"text":"July 2009","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/archives\/2009\/july-2009\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10632,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-need-for-missile-defense\/","url_meta":{"origin":4683,"position":4},"title":"The Need For Missile Defense","author":"victorhanson","date":"September 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"by Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ Defining Ideas America\u2019s great advantage when it entered world affairs after the Civil War was that its distance from Europe and Asia ensured that it was virtually immune from large sea-borne invasions. The Pacific and the Atlantic Oceans proved far better barriers than even the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Civil War"","block_context":{"text":"Civil War","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/civil-war\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10977,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/whos-really-winning-the-north-korea-standoff\/","url_meta":{"origin":4683,"position":5},"title":"Who\u2019s Really Winning the North Korea Standoff?","author":"victorhanson","date":"February 15, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ National Review There have been wild reports that the United States is considering a \u201cbloody nose\u201d preemptive attack of some sort on North Korea\u2019s nuclear arsenal. Such rumors are unlikely to prove true. Preemptive attacks usually are based on the idea that things will so worsen\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "North Korea"","block_context":{"text":"North Korea","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/north-korea\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4683"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4684,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4683\/revisions\/4684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}