Why Ronald Reagan Can’t Save America

-By Daria Novak

Not long ago a car passed me on the highway with a bumper sticker asking: “What Would Reagan Do?” My initial, emotional reaction was a resounding “Yes, this guy gets it.” Then I started thinking what that simple question whispered about America today.

Do we so lack a belief in ourselves and in our own ability to manage our lives and, hence, our great nation, that we are incapable of standing up and taking charge? Shouldn’t we accept responsibility for the problems we created in this country? And further, doesn’t each of us bear an individual responsibility to help formulate our response to these failings?

There are more Ronald Reagan’s among us. If the President was speaking to you now, he would point out he is simply one of us, the embodiment of the American dream, a boy who grew up in the Midwest, who found his voice, and used it to wake up a nation to all the possibility contained within our people.

The Great Communicator would tell us to stop complaining and do something about our problems or face tyranny like that found in Soviet Russia, China, North Korea, Cuba, and much of the Middle East today. He wouldn’t accept Congressional resignation of our Constitutional rights guaranteed by Our Creator. Nor would he passively relinquish his individual rights to an all-powerful, paternal government intent on destroying the American spirit and replacing it with a global consciousness void of personal liberty and freedom. Nor would he accept passively the unintended consequences of bad public policy, excessively intrusive legislation or activist judicial decisions. What would Ronald Reagan do? I bet I know.

He would tell every American to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. Identify the issues facing this country and, one by one, fix them. Accept no excuses and take nothing more from our people than the absolute minimum amount of power and money necessary to keep the republic intact. He might even tell a story about how he views this great nation as a beacon of freedom, a light shining high on a far away hill, visible for miles, and guiding all mankind to a safe harbor.

‘Well’, he would grin and say, ‘now it’s up to you, the American people. I have full confidence in you and in Our Creator. If we climb high and look far ahead we will see clearly what needs to be done. The Founding Fathers knew we would come to this turn in the road one day and that we might get confused or even lose our way. So they bestowed upon us an inspired guiding document for all times; one holding the wisdom of the ages and is as relevant now as the moment it was conceived. I urge every American to turn to that roadmap and use it to put this great nation back on the path to prosperity. Remember those wise men, coming from all walks of life, foresaw our challenges over two centuries ago and in our people everything necessary to complete the great experiment. It up to you and me now, and to all our citizens, to put that plan into action. God bless and good night.’

Yes, that is what he would tell us. I miss our President and long to hear his voice comforting us. We all have some Reagan in us and deep inside know the answer. It is up to each of us to preserve the republic. Join me in taking back our great nation for the American people. Let us once again be that beacon of freedom leading the world out of the darkness of tyranny. After all, that is what Ronald Reagan would tell our generation to do.
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Daria Novak, a Tea Party conservative, is running as a GOP candidate for Connecticut’s 2nd Congressional District in 2012. (http://novakforcongress.com/) She is an Executive Consultant and former President of ERUdyne, LLC, she founded in March 2001. Since 2003 she has taught seminars in National Security Studies, Chinese Politics, International Relations and American Politics at Eastern CT State University, the University of Connecticut and at University of New Haven.

From 1979 to 1989, Ms. Novak served in career positions and as a presidential appointee under Ronald Reagan at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, DC and overseas. In 1989, she served as Senior Coordinator for the Secretary of State’s 300-member China Task Force handling the crisis in Tiananmen Square and as a U.S. government spokesperson. She received a Meritorious Honor Award from the Undersecretary of State for her “core leadership role in managing the crisis” in China. Ms. Novak received a Superior Honor Award, the highest given by the State Department, from the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, for her involvement in saving American lives in Haiti during the fall of Haitian President Duvalier. Secretary of State George Shultz also awarded her a Meritorious Honor Award for her substantive contributions to the August 1982 U.S.-China Joint Communiqué, one of the main documents governing U.S. relations with China.


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