I sent an email that I turned into a blog post on September 12, 2025, "Week 1 - A New Birth of Freedom, (https://texasascendant.blogspot.com/2025/09/week-1-new-birth-of-freedom.html). The idea was to send 52 emails to count down to July 4, 2026. I did ten posts and then politics crowded out my plans. There were primary elections, runoffs, municipal elections, and the Republican State Convention. I did make ten posts that enriched my love for America. I hope that you enjoyed them.
In this final post on July 4, 2026 I recommend watching the film, "Reagan," starring Dennis Quaid.
I purchased a streaming copy on Amazon Prime and I have watched it many times. Not only was Ronald Reagan a great patriot, but also a common man. He was not born into wealth. He did not go to Harvard or Yale, but he had common sense and an inquiring mind. At one point in the movie his wife tells him to stop reading Whittaker Chambers and go to bed. If you have not read "Witness" by Whittaker Chambers, I recommend it. Ronald Reagan could tell that Communism was a threat and he dedicated his life to defeating it.
He decided to stop the Soviet Union and he succeeded. His career as an actor tanked, but he did not give up. This is what you want to take away from the movie: that in America we can achieve great things. This is an exceptional country that allows people to seek their dreams.
Sometimes others reap the fruits of your labors. JFK said we should put a man on the moon and Nixon was president when we walked on the moon. In 1987 Reagan asked Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall It was in 1989 when George H.W. Bush was president that the Berlin Wall came down. One man sows and another reaps.
In Reagan's 1967 Inauguration Speech as Governor of California he made this famous statement: "Freedom is a fragile thing and it's never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by way of inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. And those in world history who have known freedom and then lost it have never known it again." (https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/archives/speech/january-5-1967-inaugural-address-public-ceremony)
Lincoln at Gettysburg called for us to have "a new birth of freedom." The preamble to our Constitution calls us to have "a more perfect union." As we celebrate 250 years of our Declaration of Independence, we have to remember that we are still perfecting our nation, and that we must preserve our union.
Reagan lost the Republican nomination to Gerald Ford. No one remembers Ford, but we remember Reagan as the man who defeated the Soviet Union. Watch the Reagan movie and marvel at how ordinary people can accomplish great things in this great country because of the freedoms we have. Let's look forward to renewed greatness in America and in Texas.
Robert
A few comments on the movie. The Jon Voight character is fictional. The character "Dana" who was a speech writer is fictional. Peggy Noonan, a Reagan speech writer, in her book, "What I Saw at the Revolution, A Political Life in the Reagan Era," describes how the State Department would try to interfere with Reagan's speeches.
Whittaker Chambers was a fascinating man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whittaker_Chambers). He really was a spy and the infiltration of our government by Communists was amazing.
