Posted by
Allen Caeden on Friday, June 05, 2009 1:51:53 PM
We have an awesome guest, a guest who is affecting our culture in such a positive way. We need him to keep on being bold and we’re counting on Michael Reagan to help educate America. I want to welcome tonight our good Lieutenant Governor Sean Parnell who I can’t see, but I know he’s here. (applause) My brother Chuck Heath is here, and my husband Alaska’s First Dude Todd Palin is here somewhere. (applause) So I have the honor of getting to speak with you for a bit here before I get to introduce to you Michael Reagan, and what I want to do in introducing Michael is to continue to encourage him to continue to be bold and to call it like he sees it, and to screw political correctness that some would expect him to have to adhere to.
(Oh my God, did she just say “Screw Political Correctness?” Will there be T-shirts!)
We want him to be bold. We need him to be bold. Mr. Reagan, we need your voice to be loud and strong, and we appreciate him. He doesn’t shy away from the tough issues and that is so good. He never lets anyone tell him to sit down and shut up, and I would hope Alaska our voice too will be heard across this nation. I look forward to hearing from Michael Reagan tonight because America must learn from him, from his remarkable father, and that remarkable presidency.
First, I think what we’re going to learn tonight via Michael is that Ronald Reagan’s ideas were the right ideas and all we have to do is look back at his record, his economic record and his national security record to know that his ideas were right. It was common sense conservativism. It was right then. It’s right now. Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan. He said, regarding your dad Michael, he said that we need to learn from his example that courage and persistence are keys to historic achievement and with Reagan’s example, D.C. politicians calling the shots for our country, they had better rely on the good sense of the American people and bag their alliance on the entrenched beaurocrats and the elite self-proclaimed intellectuals, and the smug lobbyists who dominate Washington, and the liberal media that is imposing its will on Washington, embracing that status quo, that business as usual. It’s not good for our country. But, we have to remember first that Ronald Reagan never won any arguments in Washington. He won the arguments by resonating with the American people. Those of us so proud to be Americans, and willing to acknowledge that no, we’re not a perfect nation, but never, never do we have to apologize for being proud of our country. (applause)
So Ronald Reagan spoke to us then with us here in our hearts is where he reached us, and that’s where he won the arguments and then, this was, this was the good part, we the American people through him, we imposed our will on Washington, and that is the way it’s supposed to be. Our government is supposed to be working for us, we are not to be working for our government. It’s our will to be imposed on them. (applause) He captured our hearts so he could affect positive change by what he did. He focused on our kids, on our children, on their future, on the future of America. And when he fought socialism and any sort of tyranny that he knew would ruin us, he stood strong on his knowing that the framework through which he believed that positive change that framework for our kids, it was freedom.
Today the things that some in Washington would do to take away our freedoms, it’s absolutely astounding, and we would do so well to look back on those Reagan years as he championed the cause for freedom and then he lived it out as our president - cheerfully, persistently and unapologetically. Reagan knew that real change and real change requiring shaking things up and maybe takin’ off the entrenched interest thwarting the will of the people with their ignoring of our concerns about future peril caused by selfish short-sighted advocacy for growing government and digging more debt, and taking away individual and state’s rights and hampering opportunity to responsibly develop our resources, and coddling those who would seek to harm America and her allies.
What Newt had written in this article, he wrote “remember how refreshing it was with his outrageous directness that Americans loved, and praised and deserved” that Reagan dealt with, with then the troublesome Soviet Union, remember this? His vision for the Cold War? We win, they lose. And with detente, speaking of detente, he used two words - “Evil Empire.” He called it like he saw it, and now why today, I have to ask why today do we feel we have to pussyfoot around our troublesome foes, saying for example, the terrorists who still seek to kill Americans and destroy our allies. They haven’t changed their tune. Terrorists are still dead set against us, and are set on destroying Israel, and against our freedoms, against our security and I’ve got a kid over there fighting for our country and our country’s freedom right now. It is war over there so it will not be war over here, and it had better still be our mission that we win, they lose! (applause)
Now, on the economy, remember Reagan used to remind us that America was built on freedom and free enterprise, reward for strong work ethic. Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of the principles providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord. Those principles that we teach our children and employ in our own businesses and our own households to balance our budgets , and live within our means and financially secure our futures, and it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here? It’s all really so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this new economic policy is explained? Does anyone remember life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness? Because socialism; any kind of hint towards socialism, it takes away freedoms and opportunity and hope and then we do forget that life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness is inherent rights that God has provided us.
I want to hit on one thing specific that I’m suggesting here and that’s with the stimulus package. Alaskans have heard me talk a lot about this. You gotta ask yourself, what is this all about, the process even of creating the stimulus package? Congress being expected to vote on it without even knowing what was in it, but conservatives and Republicans in Congress, they looked at this debt-ridden gargantuan government growth plan and they voted against it. They didn’t like it. They warned states that there were fat fat strings attached to these dollars, and there were strings, there are strings because that’s inherent in federal spending. That’s the nature of the beast. Of course there are strings attached, and so there were lots of warnings given to all the states that hey, unless your state is ready to chuck the 10th amendment, and you’re going to hand over willingly more power control to big centralized government and to D.C. politicians who are going to tell you what to do in your state, the warning was, legislatures be careful with the temptation with the stimulus package dollars. They didn’t like it then, but then when a bunch of us elected local officials we agreed with them, and you know we started seeing the press releases kinda braggin’ up the bacon that these hundreds of millions of billions of dollars, almost a trillion dollars total were going to bring into our states, the buckets of money, the borrowed money that would pour into the states. And let’s be honest states were made to look incompetent, almost unethical if they were staying consistent, and were still saying no to accepting some of those federal funds that don’t necessarily stimulate the economy or create private sector jobs, as was being fed to us as. These are short-term expectation-building new beaurocratic growth spurts, and legislatures ended up resolving to take the money which it was contributing to more dizzying national debt.
The mixed messages then the confusion and now frustration, disenchantment with the disenchantment from our own government, and look what happened when here in Alaska my administration, I vetoed the stimulus package, some of the dollars with obvious big government strings attached, and shoot, I just about got run out of town by some. Friends, we need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and of fearful lawmakers being led to believe that big government is the answer to bail out the private sector because then government gets to get in there and control it and, mark my words, this is going to happen next I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states, then government gets to get in there and control the people, and watch what happens there. Michael, maybe you want to talk about your home state California. We’ll see what happens there, but for the love of God you’ve got to ask yourself where we got off track?
Michael Reagan’s going to talk about getting on the right track. He knows, we know here in Alaska that America is the greatest nation on earth because our foundation is freedom and it’s in God we trust, it’s not in big government that we trust. (applause) So I encourage Michael just to keep on speaking up, and for me….you know me…. Before my Franco Sarto red high heels even get off the stage and touch the floor my critics, they’re going to be loaded for bear and they’re going to start unloading because, because I dared speak up.
But you, you here tonight I know that you understand. Some though, they’re empowered by national figures and some in the press who, who want to put not just me, but anybody who dares speak up it seems nowadays right back down in their place if one dares speak their mind nowadays, and here in Alaska it’s kind of like this new normal it’s a little bit being accepted it seems like that we’re dealing in, but so be it. I think things here that have so drastically changed these past months…some want to forbid others from speaking up and it’s been through lawsuits, been ethics violation charges, media distortions…by the way today we won that 14th ethics charge. And only Alaskans can appreciate this one. We won the one where I show up at the Iron Dog because it’s freezing cold and I’m wearing my warm Arctic Cat coat, and a charge is levied against me for wearing the logo on the coat, but we won so that’s cool. And those are the folks that want to tell me, want to tell you to siddown and shuddup. We will not do so. I just can’t because I love my state, I love my country, and I need you, we need Michael Reagan to keep on fighting for our freedoms, for our country and what we’re being fed today, it seems, is a steady diet of selected misrepresented news. So we need the Reagans of the world today to remind us of truth.
Let me ask you why is it considering how fast the world is spinning and world changing events that go on all over the globe that do affect our lives, world changing events, thousands of them every day, why do you suppose that it’s the same big three supposedly competing networks that have the same news content every night and virtually the same exact viewpoint being spewed night after night after night. We’ve gotta ask those questions.
So I join you in speaking up and asking the questions and taking action, and here at home in my beloved Alaska I just say, politically speaking, if I die, I die. I’ll know that I have spoken up and I will speak up to thank people like Mr. Reagan as we honor his dad, to encourage you too, Alaskans, to do the same and don’t just hang in there and go along to get along but stand up and speak up, and be bold and demand that Washington be prudent with our public monies and prioritize for America’s security, and forget the political correctness that makes one guard your conversation, and couch our words so cautiously that they lose meaning, and we lose effectiveness, and then we lose hope because we start thinking that politicians are only worried about their poll numbers and attracting campaign contributions for their next bid so that they can hold on to some title and some position. Noooo, let’s remind them, those that we elect, that we expect them to be bold and so they are to be representing the will of the people to defend our constitution and to win our wars and obviously, me not being, in fact not many of us here tonight are not in that political financial academic elite center of power. We’re not there. And it’s kind of refreshing to be outside of that to tell you the truth. I am just a mom. I am a proud Alaskan hockey mom, and I love my country, and I’m concerned about my kids’ future and your kids’ future and because I was raised where it is rugged, and you kinda gotta be tough, and with dogged determination in order to survive sometimes. Well not many of us in Alaska are inclined to just sit down and shut up, and I thank Michael Reagan for honoring Alaska, being here tonight, continuing to lead a cause for a better America! Let’s hear it for Michael Reagan!