On the Right

New York, March 21—Although it sometimes seems as if everybody has commented on Mr. Reagan’s speech in Orlando to the evangelicals, mostly to deplore it, it isn’t by any means clear to the student who reads the entire text what exactly all the fuss is about. The columnist Anthony Lewis is so irate one fears for his health. Granted, if one could harness the day-to- day indignation of Tony Lewis one could solve the energy crisis. But he seems to be saying, in that dyspeptic blur, that President Ronald Reagan, on March 8, 1983, denounced as ungodly everyone who favors a freeze on nuclear armaments.

Well, if that’s all there is to worry about, the remedy is simple. He didn’t. Mr. Reagan did indeed say that “there is sin and evil in the world,” a statement that, unhappily, deserves no headline. And he did say that “we are enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.” And that also is true. He did not, as Lewis insists, and as the eloquent Hugh Sidey of Time magazine suggests, go so far as to say that, in all matters, Americans are blameless. On the contrary, he followed the line above with the statement, “Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal.” Did he then, as Mr. Sidey charges, act as one of those “self-anointed soldiers of God armed with unbending judgments about who and what are good and moral”? Yes, but surely Mr. Reagan did this in a way that not only is consistent with American tradition, but enhances that tradition, namely, by reaffirming our belief that some things are right, others wrong; that a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we make clear why we think some things right, others wrong; and that we proceed, to continue quoting from the Declaration of Independence, “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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New York, March 21—Although it sometimes seems as if everybody has commented on Mr. Reagan’s speech in Orlando to the evangelicals, mostly to deplore it, it isn’t by any means clear to the student who reads the entire text what exactly all the fuss is about. The columnist Anthony Lewis is so irate one fears for his health. Granted, if one could harness the day-to- day indignation of Tony Lewis one could solve the energy crisis. But he seems to be saying, in that dyspeptic blur, that President Ronald Reagan, on March 8, 1983, denounced as ungodly everyone who favors a freeze on nuclear armaments.

Well, if that’s all there is to worry about, the remedy is simple. He didn’t. Mr. Reagan did indeed say that “there is sin and evil in the world,” a statement that, unhappily, deserves no headline. And he did say that “we are enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might.” And that also is true. He did not, as Lewis insists, and as the eloquent Hugh Sidey of Time magazine suggests, go so far as to say that, in all matters, Americans are blameless. On the contrary, he followed the line above with the statement, “Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal.” Did he then, as Mr. Sidey charges, act as one of those “self-anointed soldiers of God armed with unbending judgments about who and what are good and moral”? Yes, but surely Mr. Reagan did this in a way that not only is consistent with American tradition, but enhances that tradition, namely, by reaffirming our belief that some things are right, others wrong; that a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that we make clear why we think some things right, others wrong; and that we proceed, to continue quoting from the Declaration of Independence, “with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence.”