Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States of America, constitutional republic which began as an experiment in self-government two hundred and fifty years ago. The United States is the freest and most prosperous nation that has ever existed. President Reagan defeated The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in the Cold War. It was a Marxist-Leninist dictatorship founded by Vladimir Lenin in 1922. It collapsed sixty-nine years later in 1991, proving conclusively that Communism doesn’t work.
President Reagan explained how the United States of America differs from all other nations:
“Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the course of government, and with three 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 we decide where it should go, and by what route, and how fast.
“Almost all the world’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 allowed to do. ‘We the People’ are free.”
“Government’s first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.”
“I hope that we once again have reminded people that man is not free unless the government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.”
“Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”
“If we lose freedom here, there’s no place to escape to. This is the last stand on earth.”
“You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.”
“The struggle now going on for the world will never be decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith.”
“Above all, we must realize that no arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenal of the world, is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women. It is a weapon our adversaries in today’s world do not have.”
“How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.”