In a speech introducing Ronald Reagan’s elder son Michael last night in Anchorage, Gov. Sarah Palin warned about big government exerting control over the private sector. the states and the people.

“We need to be aware of the creation of a fearful population, and fearful lawmakers, being led to believe that big government is the answer, to bail out the private sector, because then government gets to get in there and control it,” she said. “And mark my words, this is going to be next, I fear, bail out next debt-ridden states. Then government gets to get in there and control the people.”

The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate also had some strong words for the Obama administration’s fiscal policy:

“Some in Washington would approach our economic woes in ways that absolutely defy Economics 101, and they fly in the face of principles, providing opportunity for industrious Americans to succeed or to fail on their own accord,” she said. “Those principles it makes you wonder what the heck some in Washington are trying to accomplish here.”

“Since when can you get out of huge national debt by creating trillions of dollars of new debt?” Palin asked. “It all really is so backwards and skewed as to sound like absolute nonsense when some of this economic policy is explained.”

The governor praised President Reagan for staying true to his federalist principles by preaching and practicing the virtues of limited government. In the wake of the shooting of two Army privates in Little Rock, she reminded her audience that that “the terrorists are still dead set against us” and voiced her hope that the Obama administration hasn’t changed the aim of the Bush administration in the war against Islamic fascism:

“It had better still be our mission that we win, they lose.”

Gov. Palin found time in her speech to mention Wednesday’s dismissal of another one of the politically-motivated ethics complaints against her, one filed by an anti-Palin blogger accusing the governor of conflict of interest for wearing an Arctic Cat jacket to the start of the Iron Dog snowmobile endurance in her husband Todd’s team was competing. Of her political opponents who file such complaints she said:

“Those are the folks who want to tell me, they want to tell you, to sit down and shut up. We will not do that. I just can’t, because I love my state. I love my country.”

- JP