Margaret Thatcher died Monday following a stroke, her children Mark and Carol told the press that "Baroness Thatcher died peacefully ... this morning." The "Iron Lady," known for her staunch conservative views and no nonsense attitude, will be receiving a full military funeral after Thatcher's family asked that she not receive a full state funeral.
Margaret Thatcher was a legendary figure in her native England, shaping the future of the Conservative Party, now led by Prime Minister David Cameron, but also known internationally as a leader devoted to fashioning a smaller and more responsible government system for nations around the world. Cameron said of Margaret Thatcher's passing that his home nation had lost "a great Briton."
Across the pond, many American citizens and legislators alike remembered her likewise for her strong convictions.
"Margaret Thatcher was a trailblazer who never thought there would be a woman prime minister in her life time. She shattered that glass ceiling herself," said Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., seen as just one of many steadfastly conservative figures in the United States who are following Lady Thatcher's example.
Her most steadfast ally during her time as British Prime Minister was of course President Ronald Reagan. Forging a strong relationship with Reagan and the American people, she became one of the few foreign leaders to have a lasting effect on America and its policies.
Ronald Reagan's longest-serving Secretary of State, George Shultz, called Margaret Thatcher and the 40th President "ideological soul mates". She was a frequent guest of President Reagan, and the two saw eye-to-eye with almost every issue of the day. Shultz told "Newsweek" that whenever Reagan had to communicate with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, he kept Thatcher abreast of the back-and-forth, so that she could both offer her own insight, and be someone that would stand behind what Reagan was doing or saying.
It was their joint appreciation for the conservative movement that likely held their bond tight. A pillar of conservative thought is that all people begin on an even playing field in life and should have the opportunity to make their way to the highest rungs of the economic ladder, an idea both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher recalled many times. "Pennies don't fall from heaven," Margaret Thatcher said at a 1979 dinner, "they have to be earned here on Earth". That idea stuck with Reagan, of course, who had dealt cordially yet firmly with the big-government desires of then-Speaker Tip O'Neill, D-Mass. throughout the men's tenures in office.
"I came to office with one deliberate intent," Thatcher once said, "to change Britain from a give-it-to-me [society] to a do-it-yourself nation." That philosophy is often echoed by modern conservatives, who seek to reduce the welfare state by providing a low-tax, free-thought and free-action society in which each person will either make or break their own future. Built on the idea that success involves at least some risk, conservatives often echo Margaret Thatcher's words in their belief that without outside intrusion over various facets of everyday life, Americans can attain whatever they wish to attain.
A recent example brought up in conservative circles was the war on soft drinks in New York, though not in definition related to personal success, is seen as a clear attack on American's God-given right of personal liberty. Recently increasing regulations on businesses, and most notably the Affordable Care Act have drawn the ire of many Americans over the policies' intrusion on everyday life.
"All levels of income are better off than they were," Margaret Thatcher once said of an opponent's declaration that the class gap had widened under her ministership. "What a policy [opposing Parliament member] would rather have the poor poorer, provided the rich were less rich."
CPAC, or the Conservative Political Action Conference, is an annual event held inside the Beltway, where activists and officials alike are remembered for rousing speeches and events lauding and forwarding the conservative movement and its most important principles. Though Margaret Thatcher never appeared at the conference, "The Iron Lady" is commonly invoked by name and action by many at CPAC, as a true pioneer of low-tax, responsible governance.
"We saw ... in 1979, Margaret Thatcher, [who] stepped into an unthinkable unemployment situation, a bankrupt treasury, trade unions on the warpath, and a little violent war in the South Atlantic ..." Former Rep. Lt. Col. Allen West, R-Fla,'s words resounded across the ballroom at CPAC 2013.
"With that indestructive spirit, Lady Thatcher got Britain working again. When we talk about giants ... the Iron Lady is a representation of that giant," said West, seen by many as a modern-day Thatcheresque personality. West was born in a poverty-stricken neighborhood in Atlanta, and after a stint in the military, returned to the United States and became a similarly outspoken and inexorable force in the American conservative movement.
His story is not unlike that of Margaret Thatcher, the daughter of a small shopkeeper who went on to become the first female leader of her nation, and a voice for conservatives throughout Britain and worldwide.
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