D69 writes: What Reagan began was clearly a revolution. He was clearly on the road to re-establish the “founding principles”. I believe Eisenhower attempted this as well, but was in no way as successful. “Ike” was simply not the communicator that Reagan was. Our nation has been clearly downhill since Lincoln. There were some bright lights with “Teddy” and “Ike”, but Reagan may have been our last hope to restore the republic. I don’t think we will ever see anyone like him again. I hope I am wrong, but “everything is cycles” proves to be not the case. The second law of thermodynamics is more aptly applied here I’m afraid…
This is interesting to consider in light of the concept of socionomics. If Elliott is correct and society is broadly driven by waves of human emotion, the Reagan Revolution was a natural reaction to a down wave that brought the country to a cycular low. At such lows, it appears that the country moves in one of two directions – towards more “security” in the form of increased government as in the case of FDR, or towards more freedom in the form of decreased government as in the case of Reagan.
Now, the foremost Elliott wave theorist, Bob Prechter, is standing by 2000 as the beginning of a grand super-cycle wave down. He sees the current conflict as a minor prelude to what is inevitably coming next, which means that the country will be forced to face another opportunity to make its choice between freedom and security. Based on his technical system, Prechter is extremely negative in this regard, but even if he turns out to be correct about the grand super-cycle wave down, that does not necessarily require that people will embrace more of what got them into trouble in the first place. They probably will, but as long as there are those of us who will point to another, better way, the possibility of a third Reaganite revolution remains, the failures of the previous two notwithstanding.
I’m not saying that I think the odds are great, but that doesn’t trouble me much. Indeed, I take some reassurance from the helpless flailings of Republicans and Democrats alike, as the failures of their power-hungry ideology lead inevitably to enacting the same concept at the next level up. Hence the starry-eyed hope in the United Nations. The truth always comes out in time, the only difficulty is that it usually requires several generations to remember what was learned the last time around.
What we’re seeing with the destruction of the family, the destruction of the currency and societal loss of faith is nothing new. Students of Greece, Rome and China all recognize these things as symptoms of a society in the early stages of decline into Empire. Humanity has always survived such declines; it will survive this as well, and from the ashes of empire freedom and human liberty will rise again.