Like just about everyone who was alive during the 1980s, I have many memories of President Reagan. His words and deeds influenced my way of thinking more than any other man (Jesus Christ excepted, of course). The two memories that stand out in my mind are completely different, yet for me they showed what kind of man he was, and what kind of men we should be.
The first was watching excerpts of the 1976 Republican convention on C-SPAN on a summer afternoon when I was in high school. (I guess it was a slow summer that year.) Reagan gave a speech that electrified the crowd, not so much because of what he said, but because of the gigantic breadth of vision he brought to the podium. The assembly roared its approval, and without meaning to do it, Reagan stole the show from the sitting president of the United States.
Then after the speech, as the commentators yammered on, the Fords and Reagans remained on the dais while balloons dropped from the ceiling. As they fell, Reagan smiled and batted a few of them out into the audience. Some mischievious people hit them back to him, which Reagan thought was hilarious. It was a small moment that proved his unselfconsious humility.
The other memory is a simple speech from a significant but not world-shaking event, the firing of the air-traffic controllers. As you may recall, the controllers, despite signing a promise not to strike against the government, walked off their jobs to force the Federal government to give them a gigantic pay raise. This not only violated the terms of their employment, it was a federal crime.
The five-paragraph speech itself was not memorable for its rhetoric, but although I was only nine years old, its argument was completely comprehensible. Some people, whose job was to keep planes from crashing, promised not to strike against the government. They went back on their word, so the president said if they didn’t go back to work, they’d be fired.
This was justice at its most elemental level: the controllers did something wrong, and they needed to repent or face punishment. I couldn’t figure out why some adults tried to find an excuse for these people. If I disobeyed my parents or teachers, I got punished. Why should the consequences be different for grown-ups who break the law, which, it seemed to me, was a much more serious thing than breaking a household rule?
It was then that I decided I liked Ronald Reagan. The lesson he taught me throughout his presidency was supremely valuable — if you see something is right, work for it in any way you can. Compromise only when it gets you closer to your goal, and never give up just because it seems difficult. There will always be those who try to explain away evil, or who complain that doing good is too hard; they are to be either convinced or ignored.
Above all, he taught me that ideas mattered because they are real, more real than events. In an odd way, that paved the way for my later religious conversions. Turning your life over to Christ is a forthright denial of the world’s ultimate importance, a declaration to the world that credo quod absurdam, “I believe because it is absurd.” Many people thought that Reagan’s timeless principles — which were rooted in human dignity — were absurd because they were obsolete, false, or unworkable. With quiet satisfaction, I note that many of the people who viciously criticized him two decades ago are now eulogizing him as a great man.
We may never know the importance of what we do on earth until we are dead. May God grant us the ability to discern what is right, and the confidence to do it. I thank God for the example of Ronald Reagan’s courage and fidelity, and for his genuine humanity. He was a better leader than we deserve.
Rest in peace, Mr. President.
