Margaret Thatcher & Ronald Reagan: A Very Special Relationship Ep.2

Thatcher & Reagan: A Very Special Relationship - Ep 1 - BBC Documentary

Margaret Thatcher on the Anglo-American Relationship

The Anglo-American relationship is not some out-dated romantic notion, it reflects shared history, language, values, and ideals–the very things which generate that willingness for sacrifice on which the outcome of every military venture ultimately depends.

Western cooperation will also be easier if we re-assert, as I have been suggesting, the moral and cultural foundations of our Western world. In the Cold War years, we were able to persuade our populations that our values were worth fighting for. By re-iterating those values, we conservatives offer the best prospect of security, stability and peace.

The whole of this programme, like any political programme in the real world, has to adapt to circumstances. But what gives it such relevance and weight today is that it is the only one which recognises the over-riding importance of keeping the West strong and united.

Western civilization would not be the first to re-shape others in its own image, only to discover that it had lost the identity, confidence and will to survive: on this matter the historians of the Classical World could provide some useful lessons to today's Western liberal politicians.

The decline of the West has been predicted before, and it has not occurred. It need not occur. And it will not occur–if we conservatives keep faith in everything we have achieved and the bedrock principles which inspired us to prevail.

_____

1997 Sep 28 Su, Margaret Thatcher.
Speech to the First International Conservative Congress.

"Pope" Francis Assisted the Argentine Military Junta

On this day in 1983, thanks to Margaret Thatcher and British armed forces, Argentina's murderous military junta fell.  A key supporter of that criminal regime was none other than Jorge Mario Bergoglio.   "Pope" Francis (Jorge Mario Bergoglio), according to Steve Pieczenik (MD, PhD, former United States Department of State official, psychiatrist) assisted the Argentine Military Junta between 1976-1977 in its crackdown of priests and nuns who tried to counter that regime.  Fancy that – the current Pope – assisted in the arrest, torture and subsequent murder of fellow Catholic priests and nuns.

 

Margaret Thatcher Named MOST Influential Woman of Last 200 Years

IRON Lady Margaret Thatcher is the most influential woman of the past 200 years, a poll has found.

Most think the formidable Conservative Prime Minister, who died in 2013 aged 87, the person who paved the way for others to smash the glass ceiling.

Her influence is such that 25 years after she stepped down she heads a glittering list including Nobel Prize winning scientist Marie Curie and suffragette Emmeline Pankhurst.

Mrs Thatcher, who occupied Number 10 between 1979 and 1990, used her handbag as an icon of her rule once telling an interviewer: "Of course, I am obstinate in defending our liberties and our law. That is why I carry a big handbag." She also said: "If you want something said, ask a man; if you want something done, ask a woman."

Read more >> 

 

Mark Levin's Hope-Filled Remembrance of Margaret Thatcher on Her Birthday

Happy Birthday, President Reagan

It has been said that when it is dark enough, one can see stars.  In these dark days for our nation, President Reagan's greatness, optimism, joy and vision shine more brightly than ever.  Perhaps seeing in President Reagan, unconsciously, an image of herself, no one has paid more eloquent tribute to the late President than did Margaret Thatcher on his 83rd birthday (see below).  On this, the 103rd anniversary of President Reagan's birth, let us recall when these two great leaders reversed the decline of their nations, freed half a continent and inspired freedom loving people throughout the world.

The words of Longfellow eloquently describe the legacies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher and their great partnership for good:

"So when a great man dies,
  For years beyond our ken,
The light he leaves behind him lies
  Upon the paths of men."  

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.  Amen. 

Flashback Friday: Margaret Thatcher Receives the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991

Margaret Thatcher: A Rare and Highly Personal Interview in 1985

In a time when America's national leadership doesn't dare admit to its true agenda or call its ruinous Marxist philosophy by its proper name, this insightful and highly personal interview with Margaret Thatcher in 1985 is a reminder of what noble, highly principled leadership looks like.  

Emerson wrote that “When it is dark enough, men see the stars;” so it seems to be in discerning great leaders.  We can take hope in the knowledge that statesmen of Margaret Thatcher's caliber, and that of Ronald Reagan, come along when times are dark and they are most needed.  With the ruin of our nation at the hands of a man who daily violates his oath to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States," surely great hearts and minds are being summoned, as was Thatcher, to put matters right.

Margaret Thatcher on Leadership: Lessons for American Conservatives Today

British Conservative Party's Tribute to Margaret Thatcher

The British Conservative Party has released a video tribute to Margaret Thatcher that will launch its party conference in Manchester tomorrow.   May this fitting tribute, entitled "Our Maggie", inspire them, their party leadership and freedom lovers throughout the world.

Robin Harris - Not for Turning: The Life of Margaret Thatcher

Robin Harris worked for the Conservative Party from 1978, and increasingly closely with Margaret Thatcher herself from 1985, writing her speeches and advising on policy. By the close of her premiership, he was probably the most trusted member of her political team at Downing Street, and he left Number Ten with her. As a member of her personal staff, he then drafted the two volumes of her autobiography and a further book on her behalf. After Margaret Thatcher’s retirement from public life, Robin continued to see her regularly.

Baroness Thatcher's Funeral Service at Saint Paul's Cathedral (In Full)

David Cameron's Tribute to Margaret Thatcher in the House of Commons

"She made our country great again."

Margaret Thatcher: The Woman Who Changed Britain

Well Done, Lady Thatcher … The Passing of the Iron Lady

From The Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College

By Paul G. Kengor

Margaret Thatcher, one of the greatest leaders of the Cold War, of the 20^th century, and of British history, has died at the age of 87.

I’ve referred to her as one of my Cold War seven: Ronald Reagan, John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbachev, Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, Boris Yeltsin, and Margaret Thatcher. They were the seven figures who dissolved an Evil Empire, and only Walesa and Gorbachev still remain with us.

The world dubbed her the Iron Lady, a title that duly fits. Many, however, mistake the Iron Lady moniker as referring solely to her strength in the Cold War. There was much more to it. Consider:

Margaret Thatcher: A Great Briton, A Great World Leader, A Great Lady

Margaret Thatcher, one of history's great champions of freedom, paid the most eloquent tribute to her partner on the world stage, Ronald Reagan, when he died in 2004.  So much of what Margaret Thatcher saw in President Reagan -- love of freedom, courage, strength of character, commitment to principle and perseverance against great odds -- was mirrored in herself.  

Over the past six years we have often written and posted commentary about this providential figure, and those articles can be seen here.  But on this day of loss, we would encourage you to listen again to her moving tribute to President Reagan.  It says everything important about Ronald Reagan and his great friend, eulogist and partner in the building of a better world.  

"Let us give thanks today for a life that achieved so much for all of God's children."

 

From The Telegraph

Baroness Thatcher, who has died aged 87 from a stroke, was not only Britain’s first woman Prime Minister, she was also the outstanding peacetime leader of the 20th century.

For more than a decade Margaret Thatcher enjoyed almost unchallenged political mastery, winning three successive general elections. The policies she pursued with ferocious energy and unyielding will resulted in a transformation of Britain’s economic performance.

The resulting change was also political. But by discrediting socialism so thoroughly, she prompted in due course the adoption by the Labour Party of free market economics, and so, as she wryly confessed in later years, “helped to make it electable”.

As for the effects of the Thatcher phenomenon upon British society, these were both more ambiguous and more debatable. Her remark “there is no such thing as society” was wrenched altogether out of the context of the interview in which it was made, and made to seem to be an advocacy of naked individualism, when she was really calling for more personal responsibility. Yet, rightly or wrongly, the 1980s came to be seen as a time of social fragmentation whose consequences are still with us.

Margaret Thatcher was the only British prime minister to leave behind a set of ideas about the role of the state which other leaders and nations strove to copy and apply. Monetarism, privatisation, deregulation, small government, lower taxes and free trade — all these features of the modern globalised economy were crucially promoted as a result of the policy prescriptions she employed to reverse Britain’s economic decline.

Above all, in America and in Eastern Europe she was regarded, alongside her friend Ronald Reagan, as one of the two great architects of the West’s victory in the Cold War. Of modern British prime ministers, only Margaret Thatcher’s girlhood hero, Winston Churchill, acquired a higher international reputation.

Baroness Thatcher's obituary in full 
 
1. Early life
 
2. Entering politics
 
3. Life in the shadow cabinet
 
4. The rise to leader
 
5. From Opposition to Government
 
6. War on the Left and in the Falklands
 
7. The miners’ strike and her second term
 
8. Third term in office
 
9. Ousted from Downing Street and the leadership
 
10. Life after politics

BBC Documentary: Margaret Thatcher - Long Walk to Finchley

This BBC documentary is a dramatization of Margaret Thatcher's early years in politics - culminating in her successful election as MP for Finchley.

Thatcher: The Downing Street Years

This BBC documentary was made to coincide with the publication in 1993 of Lady Thatcher's memoirs, The Downing Street Years.  Even through the critical and biased filter of the BBC, the greatness of Margaret Thatcher and the accomplishments of her extraordinary eleven year premiership shine through.  In this presidential election year it is important that we remind ourselves of what principled, consistent, conservative leadership looks like. 

Freedom loving people throughout the world are indebted to this very great lady.

On This Date in History

On this date in 1946, Sir Winston Churchill traveled to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri with President Harry S Truman and delivered his "Iron Curtain Speech."  Here is another giant in freedom's cause, Margaret Thatcher, commemorating in 1996 the fiftieth anniversary of that landmark event.