Right Speech, Just the Wrong Setting

Our last post stated incorrectly that Ronald Reagan's "A Time for Choosing" speech was given at the 1964 Republican national convention. Here are some key excerpts from the speech plus information about the correct setting. Bottom line: It is a speech as timely today as it was then.

Here are some key excerpts from the speech:

"You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.

Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, 'The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits.'

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, 'What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.' But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always 'against,' never 'for' anything."

Source: http://www.presidentreagan.info/speeches/the_speech.cfm

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Correct information about the speech--from the blog "IllinoisReview":
http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2009/03/ronald-reagan-speech-1964-republican-national-convention.html

"Dr. Eric Wallace:

One historical correction on your clip of Ronald Reagan in 1964. That speech was not made at the Republican Convention at the Cow Palace in Daly City near San Francisco in July. I was there. I did hear Reagan introduce Barry Goldwater's two sons at the Masonic Auditorium but he did not have a big speaking role at the convention itself.

The clip you posted is called "A Time for Choosing" and it was taped in October in a TV studio in Los Angeles for an invited audience. It was made into a 30-minute talk (what we now call an informercial) to help raise money for the national Goldwater-Miller TV Committee and the proceeds were split with the California Goldwater-Miller TV Committee. So much money came in so fast as a result of this speech that just the California committee had about $400,000 left over they could not spend by Election Day.

It is a great speech, but it was just not given at the convention.

Posted by: Mark Rhoads Sunday, March 15, 2009 at 11:52 AM"