Ronald Wilson Reagan，the 40th President of the USA
Los Angeles，CA，October 27th，1964
We’ll preserve for our children this，the last best hope of man on earth，or we‘ll sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.
为了孩子，我们要保住人类最后的憧憬，否则我们将会将他们掷入千年深渊。
Ronald Wilson Reagan
背景故事
这是一次成功的竞选演说，不仅将一位政客推上了伟大的政治家道路，亦让这篇演讲成为有史以来最成功的全国性政治亮相，那就是里根的伟大演讲——抉择的时刻。这位传奇性的总统，用其精彩的语言，带给人们一场听觉上的盛宴，这振聋发聩的声音，传到美国的每一个角落。让我们来亲身领略它的魅力所在吧。
名人简介
罗纳德·威尔逊·里根（英语：Ronald Wilson Reagan，1911年2月6日-2004年6月5日），美国政治家，第33任加利福尼亚州州长（1967年-1975年），美国第40任总统（1981年-1989年）。在踏入政坛前，里根也曾担任过运动广播员、救生员、报社专栏作家、电影演员和励志讲师，他的演说风格高明而极具说服力，因此被媒体誉为“伟大的沟通者”。历任总统之中，他就职年龄最大。他是历任总统中唯一一位演员出身的总统。
演讲赏析
A Time for Choosing
Ronald Wilson Reagan，the 40th President of the USA
Los Angeles，CA，October 27th，1964
Thank you.Thank you very much.Thank you and good evening.The sponsor has been identified，but unlike most television programs，the performer hasn’t been provided with a script.As a matter of fact，I have been permitted to choose my own words and discuss my own ideas regarding the choice that we face in the next few weeks.
I have spent most of my life as a Democrat.I recently have seen fit to follow another course.I believe that the issues confronting us cross party lines.Now，one side in this campaign has been telling us that the issues of this election are the maintenance of peace and prosperity.The line has been used，“We‘ve never had it so good.”
But I have an uncomfortable feeling that this prosperity isn’t something on which we can base our hopes for the future.No nation in history has ever survived a tax burden that reached a third of its national income.Today，37cents out of every dollar earned in this country is the tax collector‘s share，and yet our government continues to spend 17million dollars a day more than the government takes in.We haven’t balanced our budget 28out of the last 34years.We‘ve raised our debt limit three times in the last twelve months，and now our national debt is one and a half times bigger than all the combined debts of all the nations of the world.We have 15billion dollars in gold in our treasury；we don’t own an ounce.Foreign dollar claims are 27.3billion dollars.And we‘ve just had announced that the dollar of 1939will now purchase 45cents in its total value.
As for the peace that we would preserve，I wonder who among us would like to approach the wife or mother whose husband or son has died in South Vietnam and ask them if they think this is a peace that should be maintained indefinitely.Do they mean peace，or do they mean we just want to be left in peace？There can be no real peace while one American is dying some place in the world for the rest of us.We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars，and it‘s been said if we lose that war，and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours，history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.Well，I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the Founding Fathers.
Not too long ago，two friends of mine were talking to a Cuban refugee，a businessman who had escaped from Castro，and in the midst of his story one of my friends turned to the other and said，“We don‘t know how lucky we are.”And the Cuban stopped and said，“How lucky you are？I had someplace to escape to.”And in that sentence he told us the entire story.If we lose freedom here，there’s no place to escape to.This is the last stand on earth.
And this idea that government is beholden to the people，that it has no other source of power except the sovereign people，is still the newest and the most unique idea in all the long history of man‘s relation to man.
This is the issue of this election：whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left and right.Well，I’d like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right.There‘s only an up or down：[up]man’s old-old-aged dream，the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order，or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism.And regardless of their sincerity，their humanitarian motives，those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course.
In this vote-harvesting time，they use terms like the“Great Society”，or as we were told a few days ago by the President，we must accept a greater government activity in the affairs of the people.But they‘ve been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves；and all of the things I now will quote have appeared in print.These are not Republican accusations.For example，they have voices that say，“The cold war will end through our acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.”Another voice says，“The profit motive has become outmoded.It must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state.”Or，“Our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century.”Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded.He referred to the President as“our moral teacher and our leader，”and he says he is“hobbled in his task by the restrictions of power imposed on him by this antiquated document.”He must“be freed”so that he“can do for us”what he knows“is best”.And Senator Clark of Pennsylvania，another articulate spokesman，defines liberalism as“meeting the material needs of the masses through the full power of centralized government”.