For Heaven's Sake

Religious accommodation and other openings for big-government conservatism

Walter Olson from the December 1997 issue

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They certainly do try to redefine these things when we aren't looking, don't they? So now it's the left that stood for individual rights and individual liberty through the '80s! That surely would have surprised Ronald Reagan. "Most of my speeches have been on the central theme of how government growth restricts individual liberty," said Reagan, circa 1971. "We celebrate the right of each individual to be recognized as unique, possessed of dignity and the sacred right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....[W]e are here to shield our liberties, not just for now or for a few years, but forever," he said in his 1984 nomination acceptance speech. As USA Today summarized his farewell radio speech, Reagan "called himself `a citizen politician' who `never meant to go into politics,' but felt he had to `protect something precious'--individual freedom from government intrusion."

And from Reagan's farewell speech to Congress: "Nothing could be more tragic, after having come all this way on the journey of renewal we began 12 years ago, than if America herself forgot the lessons of individual liberty that she has taught to a grateful world."

That man certainly is missed.