To the Honorable Ronald Wilson Reagan

Dear Mr. President,

I never met you, but it would have been a distinct honor to have shaken your hand.  As I watched your funeral procession, tears came to my eyes, along with millions of your fellow Americans.  To the extent that our country is that “Shining City on the Hill,” you, Sir, relit the lantern.  Sadly, the wheel has turned, and you are no longer with us.

From where you rest, it is well you cannot see what has happened to us.  The country, I fear, has made a hard left turn onto the road to tyranny.  The Democratic Party, which left you, has now left a lot more of us, and has begun to abandon the principles of our founding.  Yet this party today controls the Congress, which has become the most radical, corrupt, arrogant, and mean-spirited in my long memory. This Congress seems intent on dictating every aspect of our daily lives, as if the Constitution gave them unlimited powers.  I choose not to say what I really think of them, the words would not be fit for this letter.

The major media today (with some notable exceptions) have become little more than a propaganda arm of the state.  For the most part, unbiased reporting has to been found in the British press or, ironically, in the English Edition of Pravda.  The American media put its substantial wind behind the sails of the most radical and least qualified candidate for President in history, a man with a list of questionable associations as long as Paul Bunyan’s arm.  He now sits in the oval office.

This President’s foreign policy is based on pandering and apology, in contrast to yours of strength and speaking the truth, evidenced by your remarkable speech before the British Parliament in 1982.  In that speech, you said:

If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly.

This line has clearly not been read or comprehended by the policymakers today, whose approach to dealing with enemies would be more correctly described as Chamberlainesque

As if years of government overspending were not enough, Congress and the President now propose grotesque increases in spending and levels of debt which may exceed the ability of any future generation to repay, and which threaten the very creditworthiness of the United States.   California, where you spent much of your life, and loved to ride on your ranch, has spent itself to the edge of bankruptcy.

The civility which existed in your time has gone.  For those in power today and their allies in the media, no smear is too ugly, no trick too underhanded, no lie too audacious, and no twisted distortion of language too outrageous. 

There are many of us who resist.  The memory of your optimistic smile, honesty, character, and integrity help us to carry on.  If we keep those values with us, I am sure we will not fail.

With my most sincere respect,

Gary H. Horne