I recall the election of 1980; I was 25 and riding in the country with my father listening to the election results. We couldn't believe our good fortune. After the malaise of Jimmy Carter, the national embarrassment which keeps on giving, here we were, with a president who was proud to be an American. Such a heady time. The Congress was still in Democratic hands, but in those days the Democrats were a good deal more responsible than today.

Reagan was called an idiot by the left. The History Channel has some documentaries on the presidents, and they are fairly good until they come to Reagan, when the historians sniff about Reagan being in the right place, at the right time. In other words, people don't matter; it's the social context that makes it all possible. I expect that Alexander the Great would not agree, nor Caesar, nor Augustus, nor Leonidas. Nor in fact anyone who has ever been around someone of ability and who is not steeped in leftist resentment.

I wonder if this blind view of Reagan wasn't conjured up because Reagan won the Cold War without firing a shot, the greatest diplomatic coup in history; doubled the wealth of America; and made us proud again, and he did it ignoring liberals. Which grates intensely. After all, these are the people who believe that people don't make history but are there when it happens, because it explains how they are, well, what they are and nothing more. It's the curmudgeon critic. The dog in the manger.

When a Roman conqueror was given a triumph, he rode into Rome in a chariot, and a slave whispered in his ear, "Sic transit gloria mundi," or "Thus goes the glory of the world." It was meant to keep him humble. So many of today's histories seem to be written by the slave, and a nasty one too.

After President Reagan's death some essays he'd written were found and they were intelligent, which was greatly discommoding to the people who thought that he was an amiable dunce.

In these days of pretentious blather about "Hope" and "Change," we let cheapjack sloganeering, which disguises truth, substitute for aphorism, which can illuminate truth. And Ronald Reagan was a master aphorist.

"Here's my strategy on the Cold War: We win, they lose." Contrast this to "We must understand the Muslims who want to kill us."

"The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

"The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." And their loud mouths are to drown out the cognitive dissonance.

"Of the four wars in my lifetime, none came about because the U.S. was too strong." Guess who didn't bow to the King of Saudi Arabia?

"I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress." The health-care bill is my guess.

"The taxpayer: That's someone who works for the federal government but doesn't have to take the civil service examination." This is generous. The taxpayer doesn't get to tell other people what to do just because.

"The nearest thing to eternal life we will ever see on this earth is a government program." Certainly, since Senators will make sure to embalm it forever.

"It has been said that politics is the second oldest profession. I have learned that it bears a striking resemblance to the first." Too easy.

"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." And this before Government Motors. Prescient.

"Politics is not a bad profession. If you succeed, there are many rewards; if you disgrace yourself, you can always write a book." Or you can get Bill Ayers to write your book, to propel you into politics. Perhaps the strongest incentive not to pass Obamacare is to keep Bill Ayers healthy, so that Obama can have more books, after his retirement.

"No arsenal, or no weapon in the arsenals of the world, is as formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women." If that will and courage are not sapped by the disease of entitlement.

"How do you tell a communist? Well, it's someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It's someone who understands Marx and Lenin." This is typically generous. It presumes that all people think that communism is bad. Roger Kimball suggests that the original founders of Greenpeace have been driven out by the communists who, since the fall of the Soviet Union, have decided to use environmentalism as their tool for absolute control. Leftism is an opportunistic infection which, denied one forum, will choose another.

"I don't believe in a government that protects us from ourselves."

"The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them away." Nancy Pelosi, are you paying attention? Oh. Sorry. Duh. She couldn't get a job as a mall cop.

"Concentrated power has always been the enemy of liberty." Which is why the left is all for passing bills left and right, with the details to be ironed out later. The solution is not important. The power grab is.

"Republicans believe every day is the Fourth of July, but the democrats believe every day is April 15." The dollar is a fungible unit of power, and to the left there is little difference between grabbing guns and grabbing bucks.

"Facts are stubborn things."

"No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth." Filled with people who, paid by taxpayers, spend their time justifying their jobs by inciting hysteria and proposing themselves as the solution.

"To paraphrase Winston Churchill, I did not take the oath I have just taken with the intention of presiding over the dissolution of the world's strongest economy." One wonders, or not, if President Obama did just that very thing with just that very intention.

"Government does not solve problems; it subsidizes them. I've never been able to understand why a Republican contributor is a 'fat cat' and a Democratic contributor of the same amount of money is a 'public-spirited philanthropist.'" Even droller now, when the Democratic party is a conspiracy between the wealthy and the poor against the middle class.

And my favorite:

"Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other."

But as wonderful as Ronnie was, even he didn't manage to cut down on the size of government. The only way to decrease the size of government is to starve it of money.

Do not ever vote for any sort of tax increase, no matter how couched. Money is fungible. If you relieve the funding pressure in one area, it will merely let them use the money meant for that for some other purpose. 75% of government is interfering evil, and the only solution, short of insurrection, which I do not advocate, yet, is to starve it of funds. No matter how they whine for bond issues, economic-development boards or any other sinecures for paid specialists and other tax lice, always vote against them. Then the usual suspects will have to get a job which depends on profits, not politics.