So, in interest in gaining more understanding about politics, and about conservatism in general, I decided that I wanted to read a little more about the political theories of Ronald Reagan. I bought a book called, “Reagan, In His Own Hand”. It is not a true biography, but rather a compilation of Reagan’s writings. These writings cover a long range of time mainly from the late 70s. Much of the book is actually his writings that were eventually used on his radio addresses given prior to his presidency. They cover his thoughts on a number of topics including foreign, domestic, and economic policies.

I was most interested in the domestic and economic policies. Having listed to conservative talk radio for a number of years, I was able to see the large extent to which the current conservative movement is guided by the political philosophies of Reagan. I also was interested in how ahead of his time Reagan seemed to be. I was too young at the time of his presidency (and not alive during these particular writings) so it may very well be that the problems we are facing today are the similar to those at that time. But in any case, from my understanding of politics, I was impressed his vision and understanding of such a myriad of issues that are still incredibly pertinent today.

One of my favorite quotes from the book is as follows. Talking about the advances made due to free enterprise he said, “all of this came about because of private individuals wanting to make a profit themselves kept thinking of better services to offer, condiment that we’d want that better service.”

The writings can become a little heavy if you read too much at a time, and require a little mental processing time to really let the ideas sink in. I’d recommend this book to anyone interested in conservative politics, or anyone who simply wants to understand the movement that has been driven by Reagan’s philosophies for the past 25 years.

C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
This is C.S. Lewis’s autobiography about his conversion. I was struck by the title, and curious that one of the most prominent Christian writers possibly hadn’t been Christian his whole life. It’s been interesting to see what influenced him for the bad and good. I’m looking forward to the surprise of Joy coming back into his life. Right now where I am reading he isn’t quite there yet.
I’ve enjoyed his insights. Here is one in particular that I really liked.
“Life at a vile boarding school is in this way a good preparation for the Christian life, that it teaches one to live by hope. Even in a sense, by faith for at the begninng of each term, home and the holidays are so far off that it is as hard to realize them as to realize heaven. They have the same pitiful unreality when confronted with immediate horror. Tomorrow’s geometry blots out the distand end of term as tomorrow’s operation may blot out the hope of Paradise. …In all seriousness I think that the life of faith is easier to me because of these memories. To think, in sunny and confident times, that I shall die and rot, or to think that one day all this universe will slip away and become a memory, this is easier to us if we have seen just that sort of thing happening before. We have learned not to take present things at their face value. ”

Just another reminder for me that whatever terrible thing is happening today in this moment, there is hope of a better day, a better place, a better world. That this mortal existence really is just a preparation for something far better than what we experience here.