Reagan Inaugural Address
William A. Jacobson
Legal Insurrection
1/20/2011
An amazing address (emphasis mine):
In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. But if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? ….
We are a nation that has a government — not the other way around. And this makes us special among the nations of the earth. Our Government has no power except that granted it by the people. It is time to check and reverse the growth of government which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed…
The article continues at Legal Insurrection.
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Fifty years ago today, there was another inauguration. In our memories, this address is in black and white, viewed on the family television after a huge snow storm on a blistering cold day. On that day the big news seemed to be that the young president was not wearing a hat in the extreme cold.
