今年三月寫過一篇關於里根的政治幽默文章，之後又收集了一些他比較正經的quotes，今天無意間讀到，覺得有些意思，趕上美國大選精彩落幕，而且勝選川普引用了里根競選時同樣的口號“Make American Great Again”， 我們就來回顧一下里根的一些政治理念，看看和川普是否相似

    ** "The American dream is not that every man must be level with every other man. The American dream is that every man must be free to become whatever God intends he should become." (芹泥註：這個關於美國夢的詮釋，對理解公平和自由非常有幫助。)

    ** "Welfare's purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence." (芹泥註： 可現實是，welfare 像個怪圈一樣，越多的福利，導致需要福利的越多。 )

    ** "One way to make sure crime doesn't pay would be to let the government run it."  (芹泥註： 這話有些意思。)

    ** "One legislator accused me of having a nineteenth-century attitude on law and order. That is a totally false charge. I have an eighteenth-century attitude. That is when the Founding Fathers made it clear that the safety of law-abiding citizens should be one of the government's primary concerns." （芹泥註： 這段話非常智慧）

    ** "Thomas Jefferson once said, 'We should never judge a president by his age, only by his works.' And ever since he told me that, I stopped worrying." （芹泥註： 哈哈，上兩個quotes 很好玩， 直接穿越，和國父們並肩,並親切友好的談話。）

    ** "I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts." (芹泥註： 把權力關在籠子裡是西方民主自由理念的核心之一)。

    ** "We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions."

    ** "Government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives." 

    ** If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth." (芹泥註：現在更是如此)。

    ** "You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done." (芹泥註： 非常喜歡這一段)。

    ** "We will never forget them, nor the last time we saw them -- this morning, as they prepared for their journey, and waved good-bye, and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'" (Speech about the Challenger disaster).  (芹泥註：挑戰者號的speech是里根很著名的speech之一)。

    ** "Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other." (芹泥註： 太對了，不過好像用於另一個國家更對。因為美國有些時段的政府是很不錯滴)。

    ** "It isn't so much that liberals are ignorant. It's just that they know so many things that aren't so."  （芹泥： 太對了）。

    ** "Trust, but verify." (芹泥注，贊實證精神)。

    ** "My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." (Said during a radio microphone test, 1984)

** "The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or the next. It was the deep knowledge -- and pray to God we have not lost it -- that there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest." (芹泥注，1984年，D-day 40周年紀念演說。)。

    ** "I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my mind it was a tall proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace, a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it and see it still.

    And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was eight years ago. But more than that; after 200 years, two centuries, she still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward home." (芹泥註： 摘自里根離職演說。)

    ** "Some people wonder all their lives if they've made a difference. The Marines don't have that problem."

    ** "History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap."

    ** "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." （芹泥註： 大讚。有些地方的人民把非自由一代代傳下去，好像挺自然的。很奇怪。）。

    ** "Today we did what we had to do. They counted on America to be passive, They counted wrong."

    ** "Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong."

    ** "Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

    ** "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'" (芹泥註： 這話以前在某處常常聽到哈)。

    ** "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall."  (芹泥注，1987年，6月12號，柏林牆演說。)

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網上有人列舉了一些兩人相似的地方，不完全代表的觀本人的觀點哈。

1. Like Reagan, Trump is a Washington outsider. Reagan was twice elected governor of California but never served in Congress. Trump has never held political office. And then as now, being an outsider is a virtue to voters who desperately want change.

2. Reagan was dismissed as a serious candidate, and so was Trump. "The establishment critics said the exact same things about Reagan," Jeffrey Lord, a former Reagan aide who is close to the Trump campaign, told The Telegraph. "Reagan was ridiculed as 'not serious' and a B-movie actor, and they said over and over he could never win — until he did. It's happening again. I really feel it."

3. Trump and Reagan were both attacked by the establishment as being extreme and simplistic. Yet people were so fed up with the state of the country under Jimmy Carter that Reagan beat him in a landslide. As Trump's showing in the polls demonstrates, people are once again fed up with establishment politics.

4. Trump shares Reagan's "passion" for what he believes in.Reagan son's Michael Reagan recently told Newsmax that Trump speaks with the kind of passion his father so brilliantly conveyed. "That's why America right now has surrounded Trump, in this case, because he's off the cuff and he speaks from his own passion."

5. Trump espouses similar views as Reagan on illegal immigration. Trump created controversy — and won support from many — for his outspoken comments about illegal immigration and the lack of border security. Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986, making it illegal to knowingly hire or recruit illegal immigrants and requiring employers to attest to their employees' immigration status.

6. Trump is a straight-talker, like Reagan. He doesn't hide behind political correctness, as his comments about illegal immigration demonstrate. Reagan talked to people from the heart and was dubbed The Great Communicator.

7. Trump began as a Democrat before becoming a Republican.Reagan, too, was initially a liberal Democrat, but he backed Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon and went on to register as a Republican in 1964.

8. Trump, like Reagan, has been a TV star. Reagan hosted "General Electric Theater" in the 1950s and "Death Valley Days" in the 1960s. Trump found TV stardom with "The Apprentice" and "Celebrity Apprentice."

9. Trump seeks to follow in Reagan's footsteps and succeed a liberal, big-government Democratic president. And Barack Obama is even further to the left than Jimmy Carter was.

10. Trump and Reagan both opposed runaway public employees' unions. Trump told Bill O'Reilly that he thought Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is "doing what's right for his state" by reining in public workers' unions. Reagan in August 1981 fired more than 11,000 air traffic controllers after they went on strike in violation of a federal law barring government unions from striking.

11. Trump shares Reagan's overall aim as president: to make America great again. Trump said he began the process of trademarking the slogan "Make America Great Again" and criticized some of his GOP opponents for using it. Reagan prominently featured the slogan on his campaign materials.

12. Trump favors tax reduction, as did Reagan. The reduction in tax rates championed by "Reaganomics" sought to spur economic growth. Trump has called for a repeal of the estate tax, the lowering of taxes on capital gains and dividends, and reducing the corporate tax rate to zero to spur job growth.

13. Trump, like Reagan, is pro-life. In 1982, Reagan stated: "Simple morality dictates that unless and until someone can prove the unborn human is not alive, we must give it the benefit of the doubt and assume it is (alive). And, thus, it should be entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Trump said in April 2011 that he was pro-life after years of being pro-choice.

14. Trump and Reagan both have defended gun rights and the Second Amendment. Reagan in 1986 signed the Firearm Owners Protection Act, which among other things ended federal records-keeping on ammunition sales. He said if we give up "that part of the Constitution" that is the Second Amendment, "we give up part of our freedom and increase the chances that we will lose it all." Trump told Breitbart News in April: "It is so important that we maintain the Second Amendment and that we maintain it strongly. And one of the main reasons is because the good people, the upstanding people, follow laws and norms, but the bad ones don't."

註： 資料來自網上。

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