Ronald Reagan in 1977, the other by Mario Cuomo in1984

1) Paper Instructions:
Below you will find excerpts from two speeches, one delivered by Ronald Reagan in 1977, the other by Mario Cuomo in1984. These speeches represent excellent examples of modern conservatism and modern liberalism, respectively. Write an essay tracing the historical evolution of these two positions.
Your essay should accomplish the following things: 1.) Analyze the two speeches in order to explicate the difference between the two positions (20%, 60 points); 2.) Explain how the two positions evolved over time, backing up your analysis with quotations from the documents we have read for the second unit of this class (80%, 240 points).
Political positions develop as public figures use ideas, values, and vocabularies to resolve practical problems in the present. They do this by taking ideas, values, and ways of talking about public problems developed by earlier people, and applying them to the problems of the day. What it means to show positions evolving over time, then, is to show how in dealing with new problems, historical public figures appropriated and modified older positions, and applied them to address their own concerns. What problems did they confront (think about the economic, social, and political crises that Americans have confronted in the time period covered by this exam)? How did they use political language and ideas to address these problems, in the process modifying inherited ideas?
Remember that this is an exam covering the material we have been reading across the second unit of this course. Use this essay as an opportunity to show off your mastery of all the material we have read together.

Ronald Reagan, Speech at the 4th Annual CPAC Convention: “New Republican Party,” February 6, 1977
“If there is any political viewpoint in this world which is free for slavish adherence to abstraction, it is American conservatism.
“When a conservative states that the free market is the best mechanism ever devised by the mind of man to meet material needs, he is merely stating what a careful examination of the real world has told him is the truth.
“When a conservative says that totalitarian Communism is an absolute enemy of human freedom he is not theorizing—he is reporting the ugly reality captured so unforgettably in the writings of Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
“When a conservative says it is bad for the government to spend more than it takes in, he is simply showing the same common sense that tells him to come in out of the rain. . . .
“When a conservative quotes Jefferson that government that is closest to the people is best, it is because he knows that Jefferson risked his life, his fortune and his sacred honor to make certain that what he and his fellow patriots learned from experience was not crushed by an ideology of empire.
“Conservatism is the antithesis of the kind of ideological fanaticism that has brought so much horror and destruction to the world. The common sense and common decency of ordinary men and women, working out their own lives in their own way—this is the heart of American conservatism today. Conservative wisdom and principles are derived from willingness to learn, not just from what is going on now, but from what has happened before.
“The principles of conservatism are sound because they are based on what men and women have discovered through experience in not just one generation or a dozen, but in all the combined experience of mankind. When we conservatives say that we know something about political affairs, and that we know can be stated as principles, we are saying that the principles we hold dear are those that have been found, through experience, to be ultimately beneficial for individuals, for families, for communities and for nations—found through the often bitter testing of pain, or sacrifice and sorrow.
“. . . We, the members of the New Republican Party, believe that the preservation and enhancement of the values that strengthen and protect individual freedom, family life, communities and neighborhoods and the liberty of our beloved nation should be at the heart of any legislative or political program presented to the American people. Toward that end, we, therefore, commit ourselves to the following propositions and offer them to each American believing that the New Republican Party, based on such principles, will serve the interest of all the American people.
“We believe that liberty can be measured by how much freedom Americans have to make their own decisions, even their own mistakes. Government must step in when one’s liberties impinge on one’s neighbor’s. Government must protect constitutional rights, deal with other governments, protect citizens from aggressors, assure equal opportunity, and be compassionate in caring for those citizens who are unable to care for themselves.
“Our federal system of local-state-national government is designed to sort out on what level these actions should be taken. Those concerns of a national character, such as air and water pollution that do not respect state boundaries, or the national transportation system, or efforts to safeguard your civil liberties must, of course, be handled on the national level.
“As a general rule, however, we believe that government action should be taken first by the government that resides as close to you as possible.
“We also believe that Americans, often acting through voluntary organizations, should have the opportunity to solve many of the social problems of their communities. This spirit of freely helping others is uniquely American and should be encouraged in every way by government.
“. . . Our party must be the party of the individual. It must not sell out the individual to cater to the group. No greater challenge faces our society today than ensuring that each one of us can maintain his dignity and his identity in an increasingly complex, centralized society.
“Extreme taxation, excessive controls, oppressive government competition with business, galloping inflation, frustrated minorities and forgotten Americans are not the products of free enterprise. They are the residue of centralized bureaucracy, of government by a self-anointed elite.
“Our party must be based on the kind of leadership that grows and takes its strength from the people. Any organization is in actuality only the lengthened shadow of its members. A political party is a mechanical structure created to further a cause. The cause, not the mechanism, brings and holds the members together. And our cause must be to rediscover, reassert and reapply America’s spiritual heritage to our national affairs.
“Then with God’s help we shall indeed be as a city upon a hill with the eyes of all people upon us.”

[This speech was apparently not recorded. You can, however, find many other speeches by Reagan at: http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/major.html; and http://millercenter.org/president/speeches#reagan]

Mario Cuomo, Speech to the Democratic National Convention, July 16, 1984
“Ten days ago, President Reagan admitted that although some people in this country seemed to be doing well nowadays, others were unhappy, even worried, about themselves, their families, and their futures. The President said that he didn’t understand that fear. He said, ‘Why, this country is a shining city on a hill.’ And the President is right. In many ways we are a shining city on a hill.
“But the hard truth is that not everyone is sharing in this city’s splendor and glory. . . .
“. . . the truth is, ladies and gentlemen, that this is how we were warned it would be. President Reagan told us from the very beginning that he believed in a kind of social Darwinism. Survival of the fittest. “Government can’t do everything,” we were told, so it should settle for taking care of the strong and hope that economic ambition and charity will do the rest. Make the rich richer, and what falls from the table will be enough for the middle class and those who are trying desperately to work their way into the middle class.
“. . .We Democrats still have a dream. We still believe in this nation’s future. And this is our answer to the question. This is our credo:
“We believe in only the government we need, but we insist on all the government we need.
“We believe in a government that is characterized by fairness and reasonableness, a reasonableness that goes beyond labels, that doesn’t distort or promise to do things that we know we can’t do.
“We believe in a government strong enough to use words like ‘love’ and ‘compassion’ and smart enough to convert our noblest aspirations into practical realities.
“We believe in encouraging the talented, but we believe that while survival of the fittest may be a good working description of the process of evolution, a government of humans should elevate itself to a higher order.
“We — Our — Our government — Our government should be able to rise to the level where it can fill the gaps that are left by chance or by a wisdom we don’t fully understand. We would rather have laws written by the patron of this great city, the man called the ‘world’s most sincere Democrat,’ St. Francis of Assisi, than laws written by Darwin.
“We believe — We believe as Democrats, that a society as blessed as ours, the most affluent democracy in the world’s history, one that can spend trillions on instruments of destruction, ought to be able to help the middle class in its struggle, ought to be able to find work for all who can do it, room at the table, shelter for the homeless, care for the elderly and infirm, and hope for the destitute. And we proclaim as loudly as we can the utter insanity of nuclear proliferation and the need for a nuclear freeze, if only to affirm the simple truth that peace is better than war because life is better than death.
“We believe in firm — We believe in firm but fair law and order.
“We believe proudly in the union movement.
“We believe in a — We believe — We believe in privacy for people, openness by government.
“We believe in civil rights, and we believe in human rights.
“We believe in a single — We believe in a single fundamental idea that describes better than most textbooks and any speech that I could write what a proper government should be: the idea of family, mutuality, the sharing of benefits and burdens for the good of all, feeling one another’s pain, sharing one another’s blessings — reasonably, honestly, fairly, without respect to race, or sex, or geography, or political affiliation.
“We believe we must be the family of America, recognizing that at the heart of the matter we are bound one to another, that the problems of a retired school teacher in Duluth are our problems; that the future of the child — that the future of the child in Buffalo is our future; that the struggle of a disabled man in Boston to survive and live decently is our struggle; that the hunger of a woman in Little Rock is our hunger; that the failure anywhere to provide what reasonably we might, to avoid pain, is our failure.
“. . .That struggle to live with dignity is the real story of the shining city.”

You can listen to this speech here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQGKdD8OViQ

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