This televised campaign speech (October 27, 1964) is famous for catapulting Ronald Reagan into the national political spotlight and setting the stage for his own 1980 presidential bid.

Here's the basics: He says some really nice things about Barry Goldwater and some really nasty things about Democrats, liberals, and socialists. He talks about freedom, the welfare state, communism, Alexander Hamilton, war, peace, evolution, and Moses.

Yep, it's pretty action-packed. And in typical Reagan style, it's eloquent and full of zingers and one-liners.

Reagan claimed that the Democrats were sending the country onto a slippery slope of totalitarianism: big-government takeover cleverly disguised as Great Society humanitarian programs. The Great Society was just a welfare state, according to Reagan, and once people got dependent on a centralized government, they'd give up their freedoms for security and won't want to do anything for themselves.

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.

It might start out with social welfare programs, but it ends up in a bloated budget and government control. Better to let the profit motive sort things out and keep the government out of it.

Reagan rode this train all the way to the White House. In another speech in 1986, he said that he's always thought that "the nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.'"

Sounds like it's a time for reading.