A Ronald Reagan Reality Check

Jerry Brooks

Disgust is one of the many descriptive adjectives I felt when I read the psychotic, venomous diatribe calling Ronald Reagan the greatest liar of the 20th century, which was written by a guy named Mike.

I certainly have to admire the courage of OpEds.com for printing this illustrative example of blatant stupidity. There were several other descriptive words I wanted to use while I read it, but decency and decorum prevent me from using them in this commentary.

For any supposed civilized human being to spew the kind of noxious rhetoric towards any deceased president regardless of political party is macabre, sinister and porcine. It’s also indicative of someone who wasn’t taught proper behavior by his parents and should have been taken to the woodshed more often. I’m certainly no fan of Bill Clinton, but I would never describe him with such utter hatred and contempt if he were the one who died.

As for myself and in the interest of full disclosure, I wasn’t all that much of a Reagan fan while he was in office. I was closer to the typical mindset that many black Americans have. I was under the influence of the Jesse Jacksons and the Al Sharptons who told my family and I that people like Reagan were evil racists who didn’t care about minorities. As a registered Democrat at the time and not very politically savvy, my ignorance and apathy gave me no reason to dispute the validity of their claims.

A few years after Reagan left office, I began to challenge the dogmas I was taught by the NAACP and other self-anointed, self-appointed black “leaders” and I came to the shocking discovery that I was led astray like a sheep. The reality about Reagan is that he did more for minorities and other Americans than he ever got credit for.

·Women and minority owned businesses increased under Reagan.

·The black middle class expanded under Reagan.

·Reagan spent over 6 billion dollars in AIDS and HIV research contrary to Mike’s snide assertion.

·Reagan’s tax cuts nearly doubled federal revenues, but the largesse of Congress and its addiction to spending did more damage to the deficit and the national debt than Reagan ever did.

·We had a military that our Armed Forces could be proud of and a Commander-In-Chief they could respect.

These and numerous other achievements can be attributed to Reagan and these are accomplishments that helped me turn me around and realize who had my best interests at heart rather than a vote that was simply taken for granted.

I’m a Reagan conservative and I’m proud of it. I make no apology for it and whatever folk’s opinion of me is personally insignificant. If the world was left to Mike and those of his bitter ilk, I daresay I would have had to learn how to read Marx’s Communist Manifesto in Russian by now.

Even Reagan’s political adversaries had to respect his leadership even though they may not have agreed with him on policy. These people are better behaved and more civilized than Mike and he might want to take a lesson from them.

I for one am grateful for Ronald Reagan. His optimism and belief in the goodness of America and its people made me give up my professional victim status and to strive for excellence without blaming white America or anyone else for my problems.

If people want to wallow in bitterness, selfishness and extreme narcissism they’re welcome to do so, but it’s surely no way to live. Life is way too short and far too fleeting to stay this bitter at someone who fought to ensure your ability to make such grotesque and asinine remarks at his passing. You could at least say thank you for that Mike.

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Jerry Brooks is a regular contributing columnist with The Washington Dispatch and currently resides in Spokane, Washington. He's the Regional Coordinator for The Western Conservative Alliance (a multi-state grassroots orgnization) and a former congressional candidate in Oregon's 3rd Congressional District. He's now active with the Washington State Young Republicans.

blkconserv@mail.com