I just wanted to offer a few words about President Ronald Reagan. Today is his 100th birthday. I can’t remember a time when his name was not a part of the public conversation. As a young child in the fifties he was the face of Twenty Mule Team Borax. Westerns were the rage in those days and Reagan fit the image perfectly.
I came of age during the Viet Nam War years. My brother joined the Army to serve his country knowing full well that he would be in the middle of the fight. Woodstock, The Rolling Stones and getting stoned were prominent memories for many of my generation.
Ronald Reagan had gone from being the head of the Screen Actor’s Guild to the Governor of California. His political philosophy was evolving during those very tumultuous years.
I grew up in a politically conservative family. Not an over the top conservatism, but a steady pro-business conservatism. My dad believed in personal responsibility. He raised his kids to believe that society didn’t owe us anything; to the contrary, he believed in the Jaycee Creed,
that faith in God gives meaning and purpose to human life and that service to humanity is the best work of life.
He instilled in me the belief that each of us owed something back to our community.
My first presidential election was Richard Nixon in 1968. I voted for Republicans in every presidential election since.
I think most of us could tell after only a short time that electing Jimmy Carter president was a bad thing for our country. The crumbling of our relationship with Iran summed up his term in office.
The question about who would run against him wasn’t clear to me so much then because I was a newly-wed and starting a new business in the late Seventies, I had other things on my mind.
I wasn’t thinking about who would be running on the Republican side, only that whoever it was would be better than Carter.
For me, the decade of the eighties was a time of clarifying my own personal beliefs and having President Reagan leading our country made believing in principles all the more important.
The historical importance of the events of the decade was incredible; Iran Hostages, Challenger disaster, Fall of the Iron Curtain. Then add an assassination attempt to the mix, President Reagan helped the country deal them all.
Since Ronald Reagan left office, he has been held as the standard by which my generation compares and contrasts presidents. Five and a half presidential terms have passed since he left office and we still yearn for a leader of his stature.
I don’t see any candidates on the horizon that have the potential to lead our country like Ronald Reagan. Our challenge is to instill in our young people the principles and faith in God we attribute to Ronald Reagan and hope that in years to come they step up and serve their country like he did.
In the mean time, we have to make sure we don’t screw it up so bad that there won’t be a country to serve.
I am proud to say that I am a Republican who was inspired to serve by the example set by Ronald Reagan. I continue to serve even today.
Happy Birthday, President Reagan!
No Loss for Words 
What’s Next for Egypt?
by Steve DanaI’m leaving for work this morning, watching the television news when the screen changes to Egypt and the word that something big is happening in Cairo. Momentarily the reporter on the scene turns to the camera and said something like “I have never seen anything like this, something really big is happening right now.” Then after watching a little more, he comes back and tentatively reports that President Mubarak had resigned.
Folks, this is one of those good news/bad news situations. It is good because the protesters got what they wanted. It’s bad because nobody knows what comes next. In my view, there are more unanswered questions now than before.
So I check my email at work and I am scanning the news on the internet this morning and a video comes up about expatriate Egyptians in New York City. It gets me thinking about all the Egyptians that have left their homeland because Mubarak denied them the freedom they could get in America. How many of them came to our country to experience all the benefits of a free society and now have an opportunity to go home and help shape the political process in Egypt?
Leadership in our country should be gathering as many of those expatriate Egyptians as they can to help them create a framework for a government they can share with their friends and relatives back in Egypt. To set up resources for Egyptians to use that will enable them to make informed decisions about their options.
If Social Media gets the credit for starting the revolution, Social Media can have the same impact in stabilizing the country after the fact.
Americans will not determine the future for Egypt, Egyptians will. We need to make sure that those who value what Western Style government can offer have every opportunity to share their views and have a seat at the table.
There have been “Opposition” leaders in Egypt in the past that have been imprisoned for their political views. Do any of them have tendencies supportive of both democratic style of government and “pro-western” interests that appeal to Egyptians in the square? Let’s get the bloggers and twitterers working to get it started.
Our government’s job should be to help Egyptians explore their options. Our job should be to empower Egyptians in our country and other Western countries to have a voice in their homeland.
The final outcome of this whole process will have repercussions around the world. The “butterfly effect” of events taking place in Egypt will be earth shaking. We need to watch carefully.
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