[Dean's World] Kevin D.: The Man I Never Knew

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Posted by Kevin D.:
The Man I Never Knew
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1162478165.shtml


   Well, since everyone else is spilling their story I thought I may as
   well too.

   It begins with Ronald Reagan. Ron Coleman summed up what is great
   about the man and I think what was greatest about Reagan was that he
   made it good again to be proud to be an American.

   In the interested of full disclosure I never voted for the man. I
   wasnât yet 2 years old in November 1980. I actually donât remember
   anything about the guy. The first election I recall was Bush/Dukakis.
   For some reason I favored Dukakis but if you do the math youâll
   realize I was young and dumb and didnât know what I was thinking.
   Clinton/Bush I favored Bush because of the war. I remember praying
   when I was younger than I was at the time that Iâd never see an
   American war within my lifetime. I just hoped my generation wouldnât
   see it. But, Bush the Elder handled it well (or so I thought at the
   time) and I wanted to see four more years of him. Clinton got elected
   and I didnât really care. Politics wasnât my thing just yet anyway.
   Everyone has a favorite in a Presidential election and I just told you
   mine.

   By this time I was entering high school and I really began to question
   my faith. Not so much thinking it was wrong but wondering why it was
   right. I didnât grow up in an especially religious household. We
   didnât go to church as much as we did. God wasnât ever really talked
   about. My mother was the strongest in the faith but she didnât push it
   on us or anything. I guess you could almost call us âculturally
   Christian.â Iâm sure that label would work for many.

   So, I started reading a lot of apologetics material as well as stuff
   about the End Times and demonology. You know; the average stuff any
   high school freshman would dig. I wanted to know why I believed what I
   did and possess a deeper understanding of it all. This religious
   exploration expanded into politics. Why hold religious convictions if
   you werenât expecting to see them lived up to in the real world? While
   I didnât, and never have, feel X, Y, and Z politician needed to be on
   the same page as I theologically I did feel we needed to agree on
   certain moral issues. I didnât care how we both got to the same place
   just as long as we did.

   Come the Monica Lewinski scandal I figured out not so much where I
   stood on most issues but why. And I realized these ideals were best
   embodied in President Reagan. I love this country and I know it to be
   the greatest force for good in the history of our planet. That legacy,
   for better or for worse, begins and ends at the office of the
   President. History remembers national leaders in moments of crisis and
   triumph. We can recite the accomplishments and failures of men such as
   Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln but rarely can we recall the actions
   of the Congress or other people of interest. These peopleâs
   accomplishments often get rolled into the President even if he did
   nothing more than sign a piece of paper.

   What Clinton did, in my mind, tarnished his office. He had failed the
   ideal I felt heâs been elected to uphold. Yes, I know now that other
   Presidentâs had committed similar indiscretions and perhaps the media
   can be partially blamed for speaking of it when they once would have
   looked past it, but this time it was public. And to makes matters
   worse he lied about it. Presidents withhold information from the
   public all the time, I know this. I even agree with it! But this lie
   wasnât to protect the American people. It was the basest kind of lie.
   He lied to protect himself. This servant of the people thought of
   himself first and not the image of the nation he had been elected to
   embody.

   I donât care what he did or did not do about Osama bin Laden. Most
   Americans didnât perceive that man as a threat and I seriously cannot
   see a Republican President doing much different. Had, 9/11 not
   occurred would any of us be talking about Osama bin Laden today?
   Maybe. But probably not most of us. An embassy bombing or what have
   you is âover there.â Most Americans simply wouldnât give it a second
   thought. I honestly believe that history will look at the Clinton
   Presidency and judge it simply average. He didnât do anything
   spectacularly good but neither did he do anything spectacularly bad.
   The smartest thing he did was let good trends continue and reap in all
   the credit for it.

   But lying to the American people for petty reasons is something I just
   could not, and cannot, let go of. I still look at that office with
   childlike wonderment and I hope it never fades. To be chosen to lead
   the greatest nation in the world is something you do not treat
   lightly. Clinton, on the other hand, seems to see the office and the
   means to an end. Perhaps the end itself. It was about taking power and
   when the power was threatened his concern was about keeping the power.
   Not maintaining the prestige of the office itself.

   I never knew Ronald Reagan. I was a kid when he was President. But you
   know what? I cried at his funeral. He was a man I wish I could be like
   someday. He was a man that continues to inspire me to believe in the
   idea of America and her divine purpose in creation. We can be a great
   people and we can be a blessing to the world. Indeed we have an
   obligation to be that blessing.

   We are the land people traverse thousands of miles to get to. They
   come here not to take advantage of our wealth but to add to it. You
   donât have to live within our borders to be American. You simply have
   to be willing to work for what you want and practice charity toward
   those who cannot. People like that canât help but want to come here.
   And for those that cannot America will do her best to give the world
   the freedoms she enjoys.

   I call myself a Reagan Republican because of what a man I never knew
   means to me. He was a man who knew he was who he was not by his own
   hand but by one Greater. He never forgot that he served the people and
   I firmly believe that he left office sore he couldnât do more but
   eternally grateful he was allowed to do what he could.