She died of a stroke this morning:
Former Prime Minister Baroness Thatcher has died “peacefully” at the age of 87 after suffering a stroke while staying at the Ritz hotel in central London.
…She will not have a state funeral but will be accorded the same status as Princess Diana and the Queen Mother.
The ceremony, with full military honours, will take place at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral.
While there will be much talk about ‘breaking glass ceilings’ when Hillary Clinton runs for office it was Thatcher who broke that ceiling long ago. She would of hated anyone to bring that up tho because she understood real leaders inspire people, whether they are female or male. No one celebrates her because of her gender, they celebrate her because she lead with conviction, because she made hard decisions at a time in British history where no one would.
It was a nation transfixed by a refusal to make hard choices. Abroad, it was caught up in uncertainly among the Commonwealth, NATO, and Europe, a trio endorsed by Churchill but also increasingly out of date. At home, it was trying to have it all — low unemployment, low inflation, steadily rising government spending, and centrally directed industry — and getting none of it. Above all, it was an era of a tired consensus, of politics without conviction and, by 1979, without much hope.
Thatcher proved the truth of Reagan’s quip that people who talk about America’s problems are really just talking about their own. What Britain needed was a leader with firm convictions who took decisions, and stuck to them. As she put it in 1980, she was “not for turning.” Her record of courage was remarkable — from demanding the retaking of the Falklands in 1982, to surviving an IRA bomb attack in 1984, and to recognizing Gorbachev as a man with whom “we can do business together.” It was precisely her willingness to stand up to Britain’s flabby vested interests that made her controversial. For a nation that too often believed society was a synonym for government, this was a radical challenge, and marked the moment when the Left assumed its current place as a defender of an unsustainable status quo.
Strangely, it was the flabbiest of the interests, the European Union, that ultimately brought her down, the Conservative party then being populated largely by pro-Europeans.
And that European Union is a complete failure, as she knew it would be.
She fought alongside Reagan against communism and was in power when the Berlin Wall came down. She was a staunch ally with Israel:
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu mourned the death Monday of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, referring to her as “a true friend of the Jewish People and Israel.”
“She was truly a great leader, a woman of principle, of determination, of conviction, of strength; a woman of greatness,” he stated.
…UK Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks responded to the former British leader’s death stating that, “She was loved and admired by many in the Jewish community who will miss her deeply.”
Rabbi Sacks, who met Thatcher when she was a local MP attested to the “personal imprint” she left on British life, “Baroness Thatcher was a giant who had a transformative impact on Britain,” he said.
Senator Deb Fischer (R-Neb.) statement upon her passing says it all I think:
“The Iron Lady’s legacy of unflinching boldness in confronting economic doldrums at home and pervasive communism abroad stands as a gold standard for all elected leaders seeking the political courage to make difficult decisions.”
Sadly, while Thatcher and Reagan were successful in fighting against Communism and for a few decades were successful in bringing individual freedom to both our countries we have since slid back into a socialism. But for a few decades she brought her country out of that hideous policy:
The Iron Lady reversed decades of statist policies that had turned Britain into the sick man of Europe. And in the process, Thatcherism provided inspiration for the burgeoning free-market revolution in America, as well. She privatized. She cut taxes. She busted unions. As economist Scott Sumner has noted, “Britain had lagged other European economies for decades, growing far more slowly than most economies on the continent. Thatcher’s reforms were among the most comprehensive in the world.”
We can only hope the next Reagan and the next Thatcher is out there to lead us out of the doldrums both of our countries find ourself in.
Rest in peace Margaret Thatcher
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