Maggie Thatcher, easily one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, was a no-nonsense woman. She became Prime Minister of the UK in 1979 and would rescue her nation from the economic quagmire created by the policies of her leftist predecessors.
Maggie was the daughter of a merchant. And as one might
expect as the daughter of someone who had to deal with customers and vendors
and regulators and all the while make sure there was something left in the bank
at the end of the month, she was a straightforward and pragmatic leader.
For someone born almost exactly 100 years ago, she had a
vision of government and culture that we could use more of today. She was something of a combination of
Nostradamus, Mark Twain and a Cassandra rolled into one.
Her thoughts and observations provide an extraordinary
insight into many of our problems today.
In blue cities and states across America we see examples of
career criminals regularly unleashed on their communities only to later kill or
rape innocents. From suddenly being found not
competent to stand trial to having their sentences
slashed because of their age or background, American blood is spilling
because Democrats care more about the “rights” of criminals than they do about
the lives of innocent citizens. Thatcher cared about innocent citizens: “I personally have always voted for the
death penalty because I believe that people who go out prepared to take the
lives of other people forfeit their own right to live.”
She also had a clarity on the economics of leftism, saying “Let
us never forget this fundamental truth: the State has no source of money other
than money which people earn themselves. If the State wishes to spend more it
can do so only by borrowing your savings or by taxing you more. It is no good
thinking that someone else will pay - that 'someone else' is you. There is no
such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money.”
Maggie clearly understood what most American politicians
don’t, which is that government can spend only as much as citizens
produce. Only through taxes or IOUs, can
the government spend a single penny.
Given that our national debt is almost $40 trillion and our unfunded
liabilities are approaching
$100 trillion financed by a GDP of $30 trillion, another of her quotes
drives home the reality: “The problem with socialism is that you eventually
run out of other people’s money.”
As a merchant’s daughter, Thatcher understood what so many
of our career politicians don’t, because so many of them have never had jobs or
been part of an enterprise that actually created wealth – and just to be clear,
lawyers rarely if ever actually create wealth or anything else of value. “We have been ruled by men who live by
illusions ... the illusion that there is some other way of creating wealth than
hard work and satisfying your customers.” She hit the bullseye with: “The
patronage state is an arrogant state. It assumes it can spend your money better
than you do. Yet it expects you to work for it in the first place.”
Her observations went beyond just justice and economics
however. She recognized a moral cancer
when she saw one. “Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is
that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about
thoughts and ideas.” Her prescience presaged the cancer of DEI a generation
before it began wreaking widespread damage on the American Republic.
Along those same lines, she anticipated the evolution of the
left’s political MO beginning with the ascent of Barack Obama, where every
critique, criticism or disagreement was labeled racism, then expanded to every
element of American politics:
Homophobic, Islamophobic, Sexist, etc. She clearly recognized the
tactics: “I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding
because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a
single political argument left.”
The Iron Lady addressed what would become one of America’s
biggest problems when someone like Donald Trump, who is not a creature of the Swamp
and wanted to upset the apple cart, came into office: “Whether it is in the
United States or in mainland Europe, written constitutions have one great
weakness. That is that they contain the potential to have judges take decisions
which should properly be made by democratically elected politicians.” If
there’s anything that characterizes America in 2026 it’s the army of black robe
clad judicial activists who think they have the power to transform themselves
into the Executive. These leftist judges
are making a mockery of our Constitution, and sadly, Congress and the White
House are allowing them to do so.
She also understood the treachery of the elites that has
been going on in America for decades. “There are too many people who imagine
that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those
who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it.” From tedious
Oscar speeches and championing of illegal immigrant criminals to the pillorying
of men like Daniel Penny and Nick Shirley, the left does nothing so much as
spit on fundamental American values and elevate those of deviants and the
lawless.
And she understood that the left was not only a danger at
home, but was an equally dangerous threat on the world stage: “To the extent
that the West is to blame at all for the ills of the Third World it is to the
extent that the West created Marx and his successors, among whom must be
numbered many of those who advised the Third World leaders in post-war years”.
From the UN to the EU to the Democrat party, Marxism has probably caused more
death and destruction across the country and around the world than probably any
other philosophy in all of human history.
And particularly resonant today is the fact that Thatcher
understood what it meant to be an ally, saying this after allowing Reagan to
use US bases on the UK to strike Gaddafi while other European allies wouldn’t
allow him to use their airspace: It had the effect of cementing the
Anglo-American alliance. What's the good of having bases if when you want to
use them you're not allowed to by the home country. It made America realise
that Britain was her real and true friend, when they were hard up against it and
wanted something, and that no one else in Europe was. They're a weak lot, some
of them in Europe you know. Weak. Feeble.”
There were many other jewels of course:
“Many of our troubles are due to the fact that our people
turn to politicians for everything.”
“The price of freedom is still, and always will be,
eternal vigilance.”
“Being powerful is a lot like being a woman: If you have
to tell someone that you are, invariably, you are not.”
“Why in the world anyone in America is allowing another
language (other than English) to be his first... I don't know”
Maggie Thatcher had a clarity of vision and an understanding
of the nature of man and the nature of government that few Americans appreciate
today and sadly, even fewer politicians.
Most of these quotes were found on this
site:
Follow me on X at @ImperfectUSA
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