Flutterby™! : Ronald Reagan - American

I suppose he was not the most popular guy in some parts, but in Mayberry, Ronald Reagan was tops.

I don't vote - generally. It's a waste of time. The choices are awful, and freedom is crushed by the results of our educational system, who vote by the millions.

We endured Kennedy's Fascist 'New Frontier'; Johnson's idiocy of micro-managing a war to stalemate; Nixon's managed economy disaster, and of course Carters 'the best years are in our past' speech and attitude. With Carter we had ships that could not go to sea for lack of sailors, crashed helicopters in the desert, and hostages that had been held by a third rate religious dictatorship.

So when Reagan came along and said 'the best is yet to come', and 'government is not the solution but the problem', and expressed that radiant optimism that is the American character, I made the effort and voted for him, as did every one else. He carried 49 states that night, blowing Carter out of office - it was so sweet.

And he delivered - two hours before he was sworn in -- the hostages were released. When the air traffic controllers pushed, he pushed back, and fired them all. Ahhhh - justice. And that set the stage for dealing with the Cold War. It was not a forgone conclusion how that might come out, but he raised the ante and the USSR had to fold.

And he did all this in a nice way. He stuck to his principles and it worked.

He had his flaws. For example, he believed in god, and was religious, and that caused him to go astray - I could not vote for him the second time. But he won big again of course anyway.

So I have mixed feelings about part of him, but in a longer sense I miss him. He was a part of real America, and we are better off for him.

So, it may sound corny, but I'll miss the `gipper' and his belief in the American ideal and its optimism.

Ziffle of Mayberry