The Prairie Patriot Perspective

My last column talked about getting all American citizens interested in and involved in politics and government in our Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. I said it was necessary for this to occur if we were going to save our democratic republic, regulated capitalism, and the American way of life.

It would also help enormously if we could elect a president who had the qualities of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan—in my opinion, the four greatest presidents this Land of the Free because of the Brave ever produced. A few others have come close and perhaps could have been included in this list, but I wanted to hold it to four for this article. The others would be Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, and Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton could perhaps have been in the original four, or I could have expanded the list to five by including him. But unfortunately, his moral lapses ruled him out.

George Washington, the father of our country, had great strength of character and moral integrity. He was widely respected for his honesty and principled conduct. He was known for maintaining his composure and a commanding presence under difficult circumstances. He believed in presidents serving only two terms, and he believed the country should stay away from political parties if at all possible.

Abraham Lincoln, the man who saved the Union, had many outstanding qualities. Some of them were the following: He navigated our Land of the Free and Home of the Brave through its greatest internal threat, the Civil War. He transformed the Civil War from a fight to preserve the Union into a struggle for human freedom. He balanced idealism with practical politics, waiting for the right moment to issue emancipation orders. He managed diverse personalities in his administration enormously effectively. His speeches articulated American ideas with eloquence. He could explain complex issues in easy-to-understand terms.

Franklin Roosevelt was a man who saved our Land of the Pilgrims’ Pride from internal fascism and communism with the many programs he created to pull us out of the Great Depression. He organized America and the free world in its fight against Germany and Japan. And he knew the evils of communism and was prepared to fight it after the Second World War. His communication skills were second only to those of the Great Communicator, Ronald Wilson Reagan. He was the personification of political pragmatism, enabling him to accomplish all the great good he did for the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the perfect president at the right time—a man who had the personality, the conviction, and the communication skills to convince Americans it was once again morning in America and that America was the greatest country in the history of the world. We were indeed that shining city upon a hill, the lighthouse that the rest of the world was guided by. We were the nation with the greatest freedom, democracy, and opportunity in the history of this planet. These allowed us to become the greatest powerhouse in the history of mankind in economics, military strength, education, medicine, and innovation.

I believe that with a president with half or a third of these qualities and an engaged and knowledgeable voting public, we could pull ourselves out of this great divide we are in and once again be the United States of America—a nation all its citizens would be extremely proud of and a nation once again prepared to lead the world to full democracy, freedom, and economic development.

UNTIL NEXT TIME, THANKS FOR READING THIS COLUMN—PARTICULARLY YOU, JERRY MULVIHILL, A FELLOW AMERICAN.