Newt is Right (Guest Voice)
Newt is Right
by Michael Reagan
Tom Brokaw has written a book about the Greatest Generation, a generation that grew up with fathers in the home who saw it as their duty to instill in their sons a work ethic. The Greatest Generation went on to win World War II. Newt Gingrich is right when he warns that the newest generation does not understand or appreciate the value of good, hard work.
Tragically, 40 million children will go to bed tonight without a father in the home to teach them the economic facts of life. One wonders how exactly these children will ever learn any kind of work ethic. While in some cases there is a fine mother like mine who can instill it in them, more often than not it’s simply not possible.
When I was 10 years old I wanted an expensive, new 10-speed Schwinn bike. I asked my mother — the late Hollywood actress Jane Wyman, who could easily afford it — if she would simply buy the bike for me.
She said she would loan me the money if I signed a note acknowledging the debt. I said, “Mom, I am only 10 years old. What can I possibly do to make enough money to pay you back?” She told me I could earn money by selling newspapers.
I signed the note, and every Sunday until I fully paid for that bike I sold papers in front of Good Shepherd Catholic Church in Beverly Hills. Later I asked Mom why she made me work for that bike when the other kids’ parents simply gave them their bikes.
I’ll never forget what she told me. She said, “I build men, not boys, and if you don’t learn to work for what you want now, you will end up as a 40-year-old boy.
“I want a man.”
I pray that that’s what she got in her only son. At least that’s what I try to be.
On that issue alone, Mom would have voted for Newt Gingrich, who holds the same convictions she did.
World War II was followed by incredible economic growth, which gave the false impression that prosperity was no longer just around the corner, but guaranteed by the power and majesty of the Federal government as here and forever present.
What we have now is what has been called “the entitlement generation,” Americans who believe that by merely existing they are entitled to a host of unearned benefits paid for by money extracted from their fellow Americans’ tax payments.
That the pockets of those American tax payers are not bottomless — and sooner or later will no longer be available to the tax and spend crowd that infests Washington, D.C. — has not reached into the minds of this spoiled generation. They really believe that money somehow grows on trees, or at least on printing presses.
We are fast approaching the time when the Feds will no longer be able to print enough paper dollars to finance their multiple programs which are designed to buy the votes of the nation’s tax payers.
Hard work gave birth to the Greatest Generation; we are giving birth to the neediest.
Michael Reagan is the son of President Ronald Reagan, a political consultant, and the author of “The New Reagan Revolution” (St. Martin’s Press, 2011). He is the founder and chairman of The Reagan Group and president of The Reagan Legacy Foundation. Visit his website at www.reagan.com, or e-mail comments to Reagan@caglecartoons.com. ©2011 Mike Reagan. Mike’s column is distributed exclusively by: Cagle Cartoons, Inc., newspaper syndicate. and is licensed to run on TMV in full.
19 Responses to “Newt is Right (Guest Voice)”
“more often than not it’s simply not possible”
So his mother could, but other mothers cannot.
Madonna complex?
I wonder if the author would prefer his women walking around in black sheets?
Once again MR is talking about things he has little experience with. Oh sure, the benefits of hard honest work are worth praising and advocating, but just how much of that do you suppose MR has done? It’s also amusing to see him rail about a so-called “entitlement generation”. As if MR hasn’t benefited from extraordinary entitlement all his life. Funny stuff to be sure.
Vietnam was going on during the Newters younger days. Of course Newter volunteered to serve his country in Indochina(NOT). From Vanity Fair:
LOL The … pushing Bolton is a “war wimp.”
Have you ever met anyone, that five minutes after, all you want to do is stomp the living cr.. out of them?
…forgive me lord.
I think he may have been forced to watch too many of his dad’s films.
Well, have a jelly bean and calm down you warriors.
That was a great story and I can’t wait for the movie.
Newt is not Jane and his stuff is more professor telling us students neat theory and solutions, sorta like the other professor in the W.H.
“One wonders how exactly these children will ever learn any kind of work ethic.”
One wonders if the author has ever talked to people beyond his own echo chamber.
I am not a member of the “greatest generation.” My daughter is a member of the generation Mr. Reagan derides as “spoiled.”
Well Mr. Reagan, my daughter and I went out to lunch last week to celebrate the fact that she’d found a great new job. She’ll be working that great new job, going to school, and on the weekends will be working a few hours at her other job. She’s working two jobs because she wants to make her own way in the world – exactly the sort of thing you think is “simply not possible.”
Oh, and did I mention that she’s paying for school? I was more than willing to pay for her to go to college (something my parents did for me), but she insisted that it was her responsibility. It will take her longer to finish, but she’s determined to do it on her own.
We drove to lunch in her car, which she’s also paying for all on her own. At lunch, I asked what she wanted for Christmas. She said she’d like a gift card or two so she could buy some more business casual clothes for her new job.
Does that sound spoiled to you? Does that sound like someone who thinks they’re entitled to everything?
By the way, she’s all of 22.
CJ, the problem with Newt and most of us, is we have not lived the life he described. We are arm chair quarterbacks. That being said, some people do struggle out of the morass but it is more difficult with no role model that actually earns a paycheck. I admire the exceptions.
MR has a classic case of conservative “Golden Eraism”. Back in the day everything was just swell. Men were men, dames were dames, children respected their elders, “political correctness” wasn’t ruining all my best jokes, and gays, women and minorities all knew their place. Whats with kids these days with their long hair and rock-n-roll music anyways? Conservatives always view the past with rose colored classes, assign some noble aura to it, and seek to tie themselves to it all at the same time. Its this weird way of saying how awesome they are, but its all based on a lot of weak and false assumptions.
The basic points are going to always be true, families with both parents do well, and children do need to be pushed to excel, but this is not a new thing we need MR’s self satisfied wisdom to bestow upon us. Gimme a break.
MR speaks in truth about the entitlement generation that may not have developed a solid work ethic– but what he fails to mention is that this problem exists across class lines and is just as prevalent in the upper class as in the lower class. The difference is that the rich can pay to educate their children so that they never have to clean toilets, serve in the military or any of the other nasty jobs that they believe are suitable for poor children.
Newt’s paternalism will not be well-received and may alarm many because they remove the protections that were established early in the 20th century to prevent children from working 12 hour days in unsafe conditions.
So Newt thinks we should hire janitors who are in elementary school. This will instill a good work ethic in children as well as lower labor costs since children are cheaper than old men near retirement.
So if we follow NEwt’s advice, we end up pushing old men nearing retirement out on the streets since they can’t afford to retire. And we tell the children that they can work hard all their lives but when they get too old they’ll probably become homeless.
I applaud MR for working hard, getting a college education, etc. However not everyone has a family full of connections, nor does everyone have a good education nor does everyone even have brains to graduate from college. What are we supposed to do with these people? Let them rot because they don’t have a good education because they’re too dumb?
I certainly agree with slamfu, “Conservatives always view the past with rose colored classes, assign some noble aura to it, and seek to tie themselves to it all at the same time.”
And I might add that during this golden era (say 60s and 70s) taxes were higher and there was much more income equality. AA true conservative would ask what can we do today to return to the golden era of yesteryear? The answer would be do pretty much the opposite of what you conservatives are doing today.
They’re two different sets of values. Which does MR believe in?
While we’re at it, let’s have the Republican Party stand up for civil rights, like they used to.
I’d like to hear MR’s response on why the conservative party has changed so much since his dad was elected president and whether he supports the conservative values of his dad, or whether (as he seems to be doing with Newt) supporting the conservative values of today’s GOP.
as a fairly strong insider in book publishing, brokaw in my opinion branded a generation with a huge untruth. There were literally millions of homes where sure dad was there, drunk dad, abuser dad, drugged dad, ne’r do well dad. And also in the 40s an unprecendented number of deadbeat dads who abandoned families for various reasons. Many many of the ‘kids’ who went to war had no jobs, and the army was the only employer who would take anyone. It is a rare rare man of the WWII generation who will cop to being ‘the greatest generation.’ Most are honest, say they were scared senseless, couldnt wait to get home, had a horrible time adjusting stateside. Had lifelong depression and sorrow. All glossed over in order to praise a generation that has as many anomalies and oddities in it as any generation.
Brokaw’s book was to praise war as some kind of bloodless harmless sentimental thing where old general cry for death of the young, but ever stay far back in the lines to they themselves live to old age.
I agree with the father whose son was one of the first killed in Iraq who lambasted the then president Bush by saying ….dont try to make this heroic and somehow alright; it aint alright, it aint never gonna be alright.
Thanks, dr. e, for that breeze of reality.
I also agree with slamfu. By painting a rosy picture of the days of yore when men were men and women were probably in the kitchen and our country was god-fearing, the Republicans can plant the seeds of discontent with the present and distract the masses from their recent dismal record in power when about a trillion was wasted on a totally unnecessary war, and congressional pork stuffed every budget. The more distant the past, the more convenient- because very few will remember it clearly.
I will never vote for any candidate who doesn’t show us how to go forward in the present and not back to the past.
“I will never vote for any candidate who doesn’t show us how to go forward in the present and not back to the past.”
Unfortunately, they will only give you platitudes and hot air, ergo, you will never vote again.
Back to the original column:
Plenty of people are spoiled rotten and have never collected a dime from an entitlement program.
MR is dead wrong: “entitlement generation,” Americans who believe that by merely existing they are entitled to a host of unearned benefits paid for by money extracted from their fellow Americans’ tax payments.” This was the trope of Phil Graham, and before him numerous rich kids and adults. The only entitlement generation I know are those who are criminals, whether rich or poor. And they are rampant in every generation. Corporate entitlement that is UNEARNED is right in our faces today. The facetious claim by MR while blinding himself to his own peerage, is like a sieve on the ocean. Fail.
Hahaha!
Shorter MR: “Kids these days, n their rock n roll! Malarky! Get off my lawn! ”
ETA: looks like slamfu beat me to it…