{"id":16488,"date":"2012-02-22T17:45:51","date_gmt":"2012-02-22T17:45:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2012-02-22T17:45:51","modified_gmt":"2012-02-22T17:45:51","slug":"revisiting_reagan_s_evil_empire_speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2012\/02\/22\/revisiting_reagan_s_evil_empire_speech\/","title":{"rendered":"Revisiting Reagan\u2019s Evil Empire Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Okay, Ronald Reagan March 8, 2013, Orlando, this was at the National Association of Evangelicals annual convention. By the way, just so there\u2019s no confusion, the reason I\u2019m playing these bites for you is so that you understand — especially those of you who were too young or not interested back in 1983 — that this is nothing new, that a president who won election in two landslides spoke the same way as Santorum. I\u2019m not saying that Santorum is Reagan. I\u2019m saying that is what is happening with Santorum, the fact that he believes what he believes, is not unique. Many presidents have believed, in fact, far more than not have believed what Santorum believes and have said so. And the media reaction to Santorum<\/a> is also not unique. It\u2019s identical. <\/p>\n

Many of us who were alive and kicking in 1983 and understand all the great, wonderful things that took place then with the Reagan years, the economic rebound and so forth, we are sometimes frustrated, “What happened?” Why do people who lived through that prosperity, which continued into the nineties, how do they so easily forget it? How were they so easily co-opted into thinking — and we know the media with the constant history revisionism that goes on daily and has been since Reagan was in office, and the co-opting of the public school system, not teaching about Reagan, or if they do, lying about Reagan. I\u2019m not saying, “Please, can we have another Reagan.” That\u2019s not the point of this. The point of this is to show you it\u2019s not new. It\u2019s not weird. It\u2019s not unique that people think this way, as Rick Santorum does. Here\u2019s Reagan. We have four or five bites of his speech in 1983. In this bite he interestingly refers to Alexis de Tocqueville.<\/line><\/p>\n

REAGAN: That shrewdest of all observers of American democracy, Alexis de Tocqueville, put it eloquently after he had gone on a search for the secret of America\u2019s greatness and genius, and he said, “Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the greatness and the genius of America. America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.” I want you to know that this administration is motivated by a political philosophy that sees the greatness of America in you, her people, and in your families, churches, neighborhoods, communities, the institutions that foster and nourish values like concern for others and respect for the rule of law under God.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, he was president when he made this speech. He was not a candidate. He\u2019d been in office into his second year. He was inaugurated in 1981. This was basically two years later. And we don\u2019t have the reaction, but the media went nuts, particularly when they heard him call the Soviet Union the Evil Empire. Now, listen to him describe opposition then and think about it today.<\/p>\n

REAGAN: I don\u2019t have to tell you that this puts us in opposition to or at least out of step with a prevailing attitude of many who have turned to a modern-day secularism, discarding the tried and time-tested values upon which our very civilization is based. No matter how well-intentioned, their value system is radically different from that of most Americans. And while they proclaim that they\u2019re freeing us from superstitions of the past, they\u2019ve taken upon themselves the job of superintending us by government rule and regulation. Sometimes their voices are louder than ours, but they are not yet a majority.<\/p>\n

RUSH: Now, we edited the applause, but it went on and on and on. In this speech Reagan used the word “evil” nine times. He used the word “good” eight times, “God” 18 times. He never mentioned Satan in the speech, but it\u2019s what he meant by evil. So that little sound bite there, we have the secularists today. We have people who want to superintend us by government rule and regulation. And their voices are louder and we think we\u2019re in the minority, but we\u2019re not. Remember, he had won in a landslide just two years earlier. Things haven\u2019t changed, in terms of who the opposition is. What\u2019s changed is how the Republican Party is seemingly forgotten how to defeat them, as Reagan did. In the next bite, Reagan acknowledges there is sin in the world and that we must oppose it with everything we have.<\/line>