This fan is also a good friend of mine and a valued contributor to this blog, and his tribute is a genuine and heartfelt one, with a couple of moving quotes at the end. I truly loved it, almost as much as I loved, and still do love, what President Reagan did for America, for the world, and for Freedom.
P.S. I would just point out that there is some similarity between my friend's political path and mine. Back in 1980 both of us were left-wingers. I was a sympathizer, and later on a member, of the Italian Socialist Party, which was then a post Marxist, pro-business and pro-market party—more a center-left party than a left-wing one (Blairite before Tony Blair, so to speak). And it was in the summer of 1980, during my first stay in the U.S., when I first became aware of Ronald Reagan—I heard a speech by him, if I remember well. Since then I have always been a Reagan fan, although my “conversion” to political Conservatism was not complete until September 11 and what followed. But it was also in 1980 when my friend Steven, who was then “anti anything Reagan said or represented,” heard a speech by Ronald Reagan, at the end of which he found himself thinking that what that man was saying was true. Ah, how I love coincidences…
Thank you Rob. Many of us have had the "second thoughts" epiphany. I'm astounded that there are people that give up Conservatism and embrace Marxism...a thought process that makes my brain squeak. Great book about second thoughts is "Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties" by Peter Collier and David Horowitz. The were in the think of it, Weathermen, SDS, and the rest.
ReplyDeleteThe greats often seem to begin by not being taken seriously enough. Yet ironically, in Ronald Reagan's case, he figured as a far greater President of the USA than he ever figured as a star of the screen. Perhaps one could add that his greatness might also have been determined by his humility.
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