A Further Perspective
Walls Can Fall
But it takes moral courage.
Twenty years ago, at 6:53 PM on November 9, 1989, a spokesman for
the East German government announced the Politburo’s long overdue
decision to allow unrestricted travel between East and West
Germany. Within hours, thousands of East Germans converged on
Checkpoint Charlie and the Brandenburg Gate. By midnight, they
were pulling one another over the twelve-foot-high reinforced
concrete slabs, joining loved ones from the West whose embrace
they had been denied for more than forty years of Stalinist
totalitarian isolation.
The world watched in astonishment the night the wall began to crumble. Many of us knew it would fall in time, but none of us thought it would fall so soon. Just earlier that day, things were normal — or as normal as things could be while 87 miles of Soviet barbed wire was strangling freedom and democracy. But as the sledgehammers began to bust the wall and the pickaxes began to chip away its graffiti-covered face, the world changed. That Soviet dreams were demolished with the swing of a hammer is poetic indeed.
President Reagan knew the wall would crumble because he understood, in the uncompromised core of his soul, that communism was destined for the ash heap of history. He knew that freedom was the birthright of every human being, and that eventually a generation of Germans would see the dawn break at last over a free and reunited Berlin. Today, five years after his death, it is a reminder of God’s eternal justice that President Reagan was granted the blessing to behold the fall with an undimmed eye.
My fear, however, is that too many of us have begun to forget the world that existed behind the Iron Curtain. In 1989, entire generations had lived and died under Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev. They’d heard the firsthand accounts of the Soviet gulags from Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. They’d known of Andrei Sakharov, Natan Sharansky, Vaclav Havel and other dissidents and exiles. They’d seen the Red Army marching through Budapest and Prague. They’d lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis. And they’d watched as the bodies of American troops returned home, shot through with bullets supplied to the North Vietnamese by the Soviet Union.
Yet today the menacing threat of Marxist ideology seems increasingly distant. Fewer and fewer college students can identify the road to serfdom, or even recognize the reference. There exists a growing degree of naïveté about the evils of communism and ignorance about the victims who suffered its full force. In fact, some were naïve about the Soviet threat even when it was credible and constant.
One is left wondering, for instance, how different the world’s course might have been had Jimmy Carter won re-election in 1980 and Ronald Reagan not arisen to inspire American confidence in the goodness and rightness of our system of government. There is little doubt that communism was rotting from within and preparing to collapse under its own weight, but there is even less doubt that President Reagan’s firm refusal to weaken our defenses or negotiate away our national security applied the necessary pressure.
When President Reagan stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in 1987 and instructed Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down this wall,” the Soviets knew that the President’s resolve was equal to his rhetoric. They knew that he would negotiate when possible, but never capitulate. Some Americans, on the other hand, thought the President was crazy, and others thought he was reckless.
On this side of 1989, however, the voices of Reagan’s critics have grown silent.
The twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is a tremendous opportunity to remember that the enemies of freedom are never permanently vanquished. It’s an opportunity to reflect on the kind of Reaganesque leadership that refuses to cede moral equivalence to terrorist regimes with global aspirations. And it’s an opportunity to honor the sacrifice made by millions of freedom-loving dissidents whose blood was shed for the liberty of successive generations.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (57) | Leave a comment
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Torquemeda| 11.9.09 @ 6:37AM
Don't worry, there is already a generation that has blocked any memory of the evils and restriction of Communism. Along term 'visitor' to the US from a previously occupied country - told me that Russian Communists were the ones that saved their country in the closing days of WWII. They said if it wasn' t for the Communists, their country and its population would have starved and frozen. And, it was only the American threat that made Russia so aggressive in building and maintaining their army at the expense of their economy. This person is in their 30's, lives and works part-time in the US - earning enough to send their child to a $45k+ per year university. Yet the US is an evil, capitalist country to them. Go Figure!
Pat Spooner| 11.9.09 @ 7:12AM
A great history lesson to all describing one aspect of leaders like Ronald Reagan standing up for democracy and capitalism.
We need more leaders like him and less of: the current non-leader occupying the White House; the current Senate majority misleader; and, the current misspeaker of the House of Representatives. These people have no interest other than solidfying their personal fortunes and attaining ever increasing power to use against those who disagree.
The private sector capitalist economic system is the only way to grow our economy and put people to work in productive and meaningful jobs. Gretaer government spending, most for welafre handouts, will not grow the economy and is nothing more than a ponzy scheme. Bernie Madoff was sent to prison for his - our house and our demoncrat leaders should suffer a similar fate for theirs!
Hardius| 11.9.09 @ 8:20AM
I agree with your final statement. We should limit our elected officals to two terms, one in Congress, one in prison.
Sean| 11.9.09 @ 7:18AM
Chernobyl brought down the USSR. Don'tbelieve me? Ask Gorby.
Would Ronnie travel to Tel Aviv and "instruct" Netanyahu to tear down THAT wall?
Appleby| 11.9.09 @ 9:13AM
No, he would not. Because that wall was built to keep people OUT -- not to keep them IN.
Sean| 11.10.09 @ 12:05PM
OUT of their homeland. IN destitution and poverty.
Sean| 11.9.09 @ 7:18AM
Chernobyl brought down the USSR. Don'tbelieve me? Ask Gorby.
Would Ronnie travel to Tel Aviv and "instruct" Netanyahu to tear down THAT wall?
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.9.09 @ 8:08AM
Sean: Are you still suffering from the effects of radiation poisoning or something? Chernobyl brought down the Soviet Union, huh? I never heard that BS before. Hey Sean, keep smokin' whatever it is you're smoking, it's really working for you, you're a complete idiod now, you anti-semitic bastard!!
Long live the State of Israel!!
Hardius| 11.9.09 @ 7:18AM
The sub title to this story is "but it takes Moral Courage". I defy you to go to Washington D.C. and find a Moral.
Pingback| 11.9.09 @ 7:35AM
Twitter Trackbacks for The American Spectator : Walls Can Fall [spectator.org] on To links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
dum@dummer| 11.9.09 @ 8:43AM
yeah sean, and i guess three mile island brought carter down.
Appleby| 11.9.09 @ 9:14AM
Daddy used to have a bumper sticker that said "More people died at Chappaquiddic than died at Three Mile Island."
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.9.09 @ 10:01AM
Yeah? I remember that bumber sticker too, it was a real good shot at Dead Ted. Ah, Three Mile Island? The good old days!! And because of it, we haven't built another Nuclear Power Plant in the country since then, and all it did was release some water vapor into the air (that's all). What a shame, what we do to ourselves as a Nation, we just keep shooting ourselves in the foot, and never learn from it.
And Carter's solution to the 1970's energy crisis? Put a sweater on!! What a deep thinker he was for a peanut farmer (no offense to other peanut farmers out there, that was just to poor dumb Jimmy). But what do we do when it gets hot in the summer Jimmy? What do we do then? Put on another sweater?
1976=2008 and we never learn!!
Sean| 11.9.09 @ 10:15AM
Bitburg Ronnie Pompadour was an ass. Gorby had been turning the Russian ship of state for years, because Chernobyl capped three generations of catastrophes for the Russians, who were still struggling with losing one in four of its populace to war. PompadouRonnie was just a caravan dog, barking at the passing parade.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.9.09 @ 10:21AM
Just say NO to Drugs Sean!! You make no sense!! Stop taking the brown acid.
Alan Brooks| 11.9.09 @ 8:28PM
You could deconstruct Geo Washington, Sean-- if you wanted to:
"...Washington merely put Madison's ideas into practice, he was a wooden-toothed pompadour.."
Sean| 11.9.09 @ 10:48AM
Lullabull, plagiarism suits you.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.9.09 @ 12:47PM
Ouch Sean!! You hurt my feelings there Fag!! Accuse me of plagiarism do you? Was it the Nacny Reagan line I used, or the acid line from Woodstock? So maybe I lifted a line from one of our great First Ladies, but at least I don't make up (sh*t) history as I go along, to fit some wacky Gorbachev rewriting of Communist History. Chernobyl brought down the U.S.S.R? Show proof of this history you're promoting here, or go away, and take another hit. You my friend, are a complete and total bore!!
Sean| 11.10.09 @ 10:47AM
No, I won't show proof, look it up yourself. I know you're ascared to..you'd rather believe some doddering pompadour with a bad dye job brought down an empire with a teleprompter. I'll let common sense be my guide.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.10.09 @ 11:39AM
I lived through it asswipe, I don't need to look it up to remember what I lived through. You obviously didn't live through it, or you were too young to really remember it, or, you've just been a complete nut job all your life? And by the way? Ronnie didn't dye his hair,.. look it up!!
Have you ever added anything to America Fag? Or do you always just take and destroy?
Sean| 11.10.09 @ 12:12PM
How could I look it up? What possible source? Tiger Beat? I always assumed Boehner got his face by rubbing it with a lock of Ronnie's hair.
You're really angry, or really scared, or both.
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.10.09 @ 12:23PM
Just Angry!! And I'm angry because of F's like you, who have no appreciation of living in the greatest Country in the World. A place I'd love to be back in right now, but I've got a duty to fullfill, so I can't come back yet. But scared? No, I'm not scared!! But I bet you'd be scared, if you were in my Boots!!
Sean| 11.11.09 @ 7:30AM
The greatest country in the world, except it's at least 50% full of limp-wristed traitors..is that about the size of it?
Lullaby's, Legends and Lies| 11.11.09 @ 2:45PM
That sounds like a great description of the situation. But despite the problem you seem to be having with your wrist there Sean, it's still the Greatest Country in the World no matter how you try to spin it. You can't compare America, unless you've been away from it for a long time, and seen how the rest of the World gets to live (and no, not the tourist areas in the rest of the World!!). Then you may find the Patriotism that you've seem to have lost, in a place a long, long way from home. Give it a shot Sean, and then come back and talk sh*t to me. At least then you'll have the proof to back up what you think you know right now. I've already invested that time, which is why I can talk sh*t!! Been there, and done that!!
Len| 11.9.09 @ 11:31AM
Mr. Issa is yet another Reagan hagiographer embellishing his achievements and attributing traits to him that are contradicted by his actual record in office.
Let's start with this neat little phrase "national security". Many, and I do mean many, both repugs and dims have distorted common defense into this evangelism of freedom through force throughout the world and call it now national security. The ever looming threat of someone out to get us is used to justify bypassing the US constitution and fight battles throughout the world yet neglect the actual threat to freedom here by a power hungry legislate everything congress an executive office that has become so enlarged that the president can no make decisions for private companies. This has been facilitated by a SCOTUS that has taken upon itself the authority to bypass the amendment process and legitimize the constant usurpations by the other two branches.
Now a president can send troops out with war being constitutionally declared OR AN ACTUAL ATTACK upon the states. Please note here that the 9/11 terrorists were not a country invading us but people ALLOWED in by a congress that does not discriminate for what should be the purpose of perpetuating and preserving that which birthed the US. Reagan was an enabler in these violations, and may have even helped get us here by supplying the previous version of the taliban, and enabling them to be a threat, this is called blowback. PREEMPTIVE MY ___!! By what right, what authority do we as a people have to dictate to another country their arms development? Only our mere size, but no true legal justification. No wonder these countries hate us, us who are so unwilling to examine our arrogant stance.
Further Reagan was no friend of freedom here as he got behind social security, medicaid, medicare, the dept. of Ed., engaged in an unconstitutional war on drugs, which is the purview of the states. As a side, Bush and McCain, those great freedom fighters, sponsored and failed to veto the BCRA, yet another encroachment on our freedom here. Naturally all the people who look for the bad guy elsewhere to put him fail to fight for freedom here.
If Reagan represents some kind of conservative achievement, then conservatism is truly a failed approach. People you cannot make a monarch out of the president and still expect to keep your freedom. The more government grows, the less the people retain their right to life, liberty and the fruit of their labor.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 11:45AM
Len
You are either too young, or too stupid, or too ignorant, or all the above. If you are simply too young, I forgive you.
Go learn real history, or go back to daily kos.
Len| 11.9.09 @ 5:00PM
Gotta love neocons like you Ken. Actually when I got to daily kos and advocate for constitutionality and natural rights for which this country fought for(read the D of I), I get the same kind of pejoratives hurled at me accompanied with a non reasoned response which in no attempts to base it's argument in reasoning or the US constitution.
C'mon Ken why don't you actually point out in the Us constitution where the kind of military enactments we continually engage in have a basis. Oh, BTW, please skip the fallacious preemptive type based arguments which have no foundation in the US constitution.Here's another popular argument used by dims and repugs alike to avoid adhering to the constraints imposed by the US constitution; it's outdated or anachronistic. Shall we just continully bypass the US constitution, such as Pelosi and the Democrats just did with their health bill?
Ken why did you not at least attempt to refute my arguments with sound reasoning? Why did you neglect directing me to that grant of power enabling the congress or the president to ignore the formalized agreement of the people of the states as to the form of government in this country? I'm guessing that like most neocons you bemoan usurpations by the left, but AS ILLUSTRATED by your response REFUSE to examine your own thinking by any impartial, objective standard.
No Ken I'm not ignorant, I am very well versed in the US constitution, the federal convention debates, the state ratification debates, the historical understanding understanding of the grants of power contained within the US constitution. Leave your silly insults, grow up, and put your OPINION out there to be measured against the US constitution and the rights of man for which all governments should be formed to protect.
AGAIN, I think it necessary with people like you who dislike to examine your thinking, direct me to the clauses in the US constitution allowing for such capricious actions employed by this country in world affairs. Likely you are too arroagant, too self-righteous in your eyes to do so.
Len | 11.9.09 @ 5:15PM
I'll help you here Ken, with a quick summary of my position on the US constitution. Feel free to refute using either the framers words(although I don't give much credence to a fellowe like Hamilton who was a monarchist, and left the convention when he saw he wasn't going to get his way), or those of the delegates to the state ratification debates.
constitutional powers Ok, not all, but the main ones in Article 1, Section 8.
1) Raise revenue.
2)Borrow money.
3)Commercial relations with foreign political bodies/societies. Keep trade regular AMONG the STATES. This means that the federal government has AUTHORITY in regards to the STATES to prevent them from overburdening the people of other states who are doing business in those states, NOT power over private citizens.
4)Uniform citizenry standards, and bankruptcy laws.
5)Uniform currency and standards throughout the states. (This creates confidence for commercial relations among the states.)
6) Protect the currency by laws and punishments.
7)Post roads and offices. (Possibly can be done away with)
8)Lower courts
9)Enable people to make scientific, scholarly advancements by protecting the fruit of their labor for an appropriate amount of time.(BTW, this surely does not mean give money for such, the language is just not there.)
10)Protect the seas.
11)Protect the land and people. (Not national interests, not establish democracy, or nation build)
12) Raise armies.(This follows 10. Also raise does not equal conscript, it merely grants the federal government to handle common defense)
13)Ditto, but naval.
14) To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
15)To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
16)Arm, organize and maintain the same standards of regulations and weaponry for the militia.
17) Sole jurisdiction over the property needed for federal functions. (This enables the federal government to not have to worry about conflicts with the states. It certainly does not allow for national parks or any such thing)
18) The legislative ability to make laws to enact the above. (Only the above, and nothing more. An example is the secret service, which is not an enumerated power, but necessary to protect the currency.)
Please note that nowhere did I mention "general welfare". This is due to the fact that it is not a power, but a subordinate, defining and limiting clause for revenue.
All the powers are capitalized, this was not an oversight. Common defense and general welfare are sandwiched within the revenue power. This also is not an oversight, otherwise we would have to charge the framers with stupidity to neglect the proper framing of a power, and to not make prominent what would be such an overarching power.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 7:17PM
Dear Lenniekins
I will dance a little just to show your youth and/or willful ignorance.
1. I note that you cannot bear to use the framers' words...but your own cutsie paraphrases.
2. I also appreciated your cutsie little "guiding comments" through the whole.
3. I wondered what freshman classes you got those.
4. I will give you one single clue, child. "Tripoli".
5. I shall now give you another phrase to defecate upon: "Life...Liberty...and the pursuit of happiness" Our constitution is not a death wish. LIFE comes number one. LIBERTY comes second.
PS, I am proud to be considered a neo-conservative, though I am not. I simply refuse to live in la la land...or the north pole with eskimos.
I sorta' am proud of my forefathers and I that gave billions of humans a chance for life, liberty and freedom.
Tassie, (see below)
I am honored to have been of help. Mr. Reagan is one of the guys I look forward to visiting with at length in eternity.
Just think, people. If Jesus Christ was telling the truth...then we get to visit with all the folks we have read about. Well, all the folks on the right side of eternity.
If He was a liar...well we are dogfood when we die so who cares?
I bet my life and eternity on Him.
Len| 11.9.09 @ 8:17PM
You want the framers words?
Article 1, section 8..To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.
Sorry Ken, nothing in there about preemptive strikes, and certainly nothing about coming to the defense of one country being invaded by another a la the Gulf War. Nothing about meddling in other countries affairs either, for that I suggest you read a true American president's words, George Washington's farewell address.
Again I challenge your constitutionally illiterate mind to show me where in the US constitution this policing the world and dictating to other countries what kind of army they are allowed to have is allowed.
I also challenge you to prove that we were at risk frm the USSR or Korea or Vietnam, and on down the line, other than in your head.
BTW if by tripoli you are referring to the DEFENDING of our citizens from PIRATES that would fall under the powers concerning the naval forces and piracy.
victor| 11.9.09 @ 10:30PM
Hey Ken,
Lennie is a lost cause,
He loses his balance from praying to Ron Paul five times a day.
Forget about this liberalterrier, he's just going to keep yapping and nipping at your heels.
For instance, he keeps mangling Washington's remarks about 'Foreign Entanglements", the phrase does not even occur in his Farewell
Address, he was warning us about getting involved in foreign intrigues which was the custom in europe, and which was the cause of World War I. Alliances that went far beyond ordinary commercial interests.
What Sean is really worked up over is our alliance with Israel.
Listen to the other Non-Intervo's on this and on other sites.
According to him and others, we, in the person of the great Harry S Truman, had no business creating the State of Israel. Then, now or ever.
Nonnies want to put window shades on their eyes and cotton balls in their ears and lock all the windows and doors and keep the world out of the US.
Unfortunately, for them, that train left the station long, long ago.
victor| 11.9.09 @ 10:33PM
Found this quite by chance and on AmSpec to boot.
Que apropos.
"President Washington rightly wished to avoid Americans becoming cannon fodder in wars started by our more powerful allies.
What he would have to say about an America more powerful than all the other countries and leading the alliances we can't say. I wonder if he could even have conceived of the power and wealth of the country today.
On that basis I think it is unwise to assume that he would retain his opinion about foreign alliances and consortia."
Al Adab| 11.9.09 @ 2:57PM
And where on this day of celebration, a joyous time of liberation, is the American President? Lobbying to turn the citizens into serfs.
That he is not present to honor the memory of his predecessors is abhorant. Once our nation stood for freedom. What does it stand for now?
The world owes a thank you (and so much more) to Mrs. Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, Ronald Reagan and GHW Bush (remember the coup and how it was handled) and let us not forget Gorby. He could have rolled the tanks and chose not to. For that, we owe him a nod of gratitude.
Revisionists may pontificate, but Liberty shines brightly even if diminished in our land>
Tassie| 11.9.09 @ 5:25PM
I lived all my life in a communist country(not anymore now) and will be always greatful to president Reagen for what he did for all eastern countries. A democrat would never had the courage to do such an historical act.
Thank you America! May God bless you always!
Al Adab| 11.9.09 @ 10:56PM
Thank you Tassie for your kindness. I only wish we today were worthy of your thanks. Let freedom ring.
Stan Redmond| 11.9.09 @ 6:02PM
Did anyone happen to hear the embarassing TV address Obama made? The man is so in love with himself he had to make the speech about him. Now I know not many people here are surprised for his ego feeding. I found this live particularly repulsive.
---- "Few would have foreseen ... that a united Germany would be led by a woman from Brandenburg or that their American ally would be led by a man of African descent. But human destiny is what human beings make of it,"
Yes Mr. Obama. The world is much more wonderful because you were elected president. Thanks for reminding us...again.
Al Adab| 11.9.09 @ 6:50PM
He also praised those who stood for freedom and tore down the wall. Will he praise those millions in his own country who stand for freedom against his statist policies? Or will he tax and jail them?
Stan Redmond| 11.9.09 @ 9:21PM
It is also funny juxtaposing this speech next to his Obama worship "Citizen of the World" speech. In that speech, he praised the "world" for coming together to turn against the wall. I don't think the soviet empire attended those meetings. Even liberals in the US were wetting their pants when Reagan challenged Gorbie to tear down the wall. There was a small brave group that tore that wall down. Not a world wide movement.
Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.09 @ 7:23PM
AL Adab
Stan
Tassie
See above
I just want to thank Amspec again for getting to sorta' meeting you all.
Al Adab| 11.9.09 @ 11:02PM
Ken,
This is why they want to shut down the internet. It has become our modern committee of correspondence. It is where we meet, share ideas, debate and encourage one another.
Tassie, Stan Adam Smith, Gill O'teen et al
I am proud to "know" you all.
ATLmedia| 11.9.09 @ 11:04PM
CNN & the rest MSM all talking about RReagan , like he had something to do w/ the Wall falling.
Pleeeease. no one remembers the USSR running out of money (Oil price crash anyone?) in the late 80's.
Simply put there was no finance for the satellite states-freedom, always, follows the money.Everything... follows the money-Ask Sarah Palin fer Crissakes.
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