Ronald Reagan's legacy lives on

By BOB URBAN

rurban@tnonline.com

As we prepare for Tuesday's primary elections, I got thinking about how many presidential elections I've been around for. Barack Obama is the 13th commander in chief since I was put on this planet. Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first. In fact, he died on my first birthday, April 12, 1945. I have been eligible to vote for nine presidents. This will be my 13th presidential election.

My favorite president? I think it's lights out - Ronald Reagan, "The Gipper", the movie actor who served two terms from 1981-1989. He was the best, and my favorite.

I was part of the Reagan Revolution, a program aimed to reinvigorate the American people and reduce their reliance upon government. According to one biography, he felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore "The great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism."

Sadly, those feeling aren't shared by Americans today under the current administration.

But Ronald Reagan's legacy lives on. Today, as we prepare to elect a president to a fresh four years in the White House, I think it's fitting to reflect on Reagan's philosophies, summed up in some of his most favorite quotations. They include:

"Socialism only works

in two places:

Heaven where they don't

need it and hell where they already have it."

"Here's my strategy on

the Cold War:

We win, they lose."

"The most terrifying words

In the English language are:

'I'm from the government

and I'm here to help.'"

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so."

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

"I have wondered at times about what the

Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses

had run them through the U.S. Congress."

"The taxpayer:

That's someone who works

For the federal government

but doesn't have to take the

civil service examination."

"Government is like a baby:

An alimentary canal with a

big appetite at one end and

no sense of responsibility

at the other"

"The nearest thing to eternal

life we will ever see on

this earth is a

government program."

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession.

I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first"

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases:

If it moves, tax it.

If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving,

subsidize it"

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed,

there are many rewards;

if you disgrace yourself,

you can always write a book."

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women."

"If we ever forget that we're one nation under GOD, then we will be a nation gone under."