by Danny Varat, Phd from the Greenville news

We remembered earlier this month the fall of the Berlin Wall and the resulting wave of freedom that washed across eastern Europe. The wall officially came down in 1989, but the seeds of its destruction were sown and nurtured by the greatest American of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan.

And, even while most Americans know that without Ronald Reagan the Cold War would still be “cold,” they may not remember just how much work Reagan had to do. Thankfully, Reagan believed in freedom — for us and everyone else.

Perhaps few recall that Jimmy Carter pledged not to be driven solely by opposition to communism. The United States under Carter therefore disarmed while the Soviets staged a massive military buildup and simultaneously funded Marxist political insurgencies around the world.

American readiness was an oxymoron in 1981 when Reagan entered the White House. America had not built a new long range bomber (the B-52) since 1954. The United States Navy stored less than a one-week supply of most major defensive missiles and torpedoes. The fleet had been cut in half since 1969, and we could not fill out the ships’ magazines even once, let alone refill them.

Reagan fixed the problem. The Reagan buildup produced “smart” bombs and stealth technology, Tomahawk cruise missiles and Patriot defenses, Aegis cruisers, Abrams tanks, Apache helicopters, night-fighting capabilities, and other systems focused on the Soviets.

The most potent arrow in Reagan’s military quiver was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI). Some mocked it as “Star Wars,” but one Gorbachev aide noted that, “we understood that it was a new stage, a new turn in the armaments race,” and that if SDI continued, “we would have to start our own program … and this (would bring) further exhaustion of the country.”

The enduring legacy of Ronald Reagan however remains the fact that as Margaret Thatcher said in 1991, “he won the Cold War without firing a single shot.”

Reagan never hid his anti-communism. Reagan always proclaimed that freedom is morally and materially superior to communism, and constantly linked the two in his speeches. Reagan declared that in denying freedom via tyranny, the Soviet Union crippled the human spirit. Reagan noted in a 1982 speech to the British Parliament that, “one of the simple but overwhelming facts of our times is this: Of all the millions of refugees we’ve seen in the modern world, their flight is always away from, not toward, the communist world.”

Reagan labeled communism “the focus of evil in the modern world” and the Soviet Union an “evil empire.” Reagan said both privately and publicly that the inherent weaknesses of communism, its denial of personal and economic freedom, would kill it. Reagan designed his foreign policy to that end, and it worked.

His effectiveness was marked at the 27th Party Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in March 1986 which declared that, “without an acceleration of the country’s economic and social development, it will be impossible to maintain our position on the international scene.”

Then Ronald Reagan went to the Brandenburg Gate on June 1987. There he proclaimed that, “we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Gorbachev in 1988 announced a unilateral cutback of 500,000 men from the Soviet forces in eastern Europe. Even Newsweek reported that this “was surely a move forced by economic woes.” Gorbachev himself told Reagan “I’m not doing this for show… I’m doing this because I need to. I’m doing this because there’s a revolution taking place in my country.” The rest is history.

Soviet troops began to withdraw from eastern Europe, and the populations there threw off their dictators. The Berlin Wall fell in November 1989. Communism died in the Soviet Union in 1991. Its precipitous fall occurred when its engine lost the remaining fuel of captive populations and finally blew. Reagan was right. Communism was inherently flawed, and he applied just enough pressure to topple it.

The lesson of 1989, that Ronald Reagan taught us and the world, remains true today. Freedom conquers, if we give it half a chance. The leaders of today should stand up for freedom with the zeal of Ronald Reagan. They will find not only that is it more satisfying than apologizing, but also that it actually works.

Additional Facts

Tuesday November 24, 2009 Guantanamo Bay. Automotive Takeovers.  ObamaCare. Extreme Spending. It’s all happening because career politicians control a broken Washington. As long as members have the chance to spend their lives in Washington, their interests will always skew toward spending taxpayer dollars to buyoff special interests, covering over corruption in the bureaucracy, relationship building among lobbyists, and trading favors for pork – in short, amassing their own power. It has to stop or we will never rebuild our economy and put America back on top. That’s why I’m pushing my term limits bill in the Senate and why I’m calling on you to help now.  We are recruiting a team of conservatives to stand with us. I need your help finding them today. We have launched a new volunteer activation center at www.voterfetch.com. With Voter Fetch, you can call your neighbors and ask them to sign our Term Limits Petition atwww.jimdemint.com. It’s incredibly easy. Just visit click here and you’ll be taken to our Voter Fetch page. Register as a new user and you will be emailed access very quickly. Once registered, just pick where you want to call and you’ll be given a script and a list of voters to call from home. You can sit right in front of your computer and make the calls today. If you’d like more information on how our new volunteer system works, just watch the video at www.voterfetch.com. We really need your help to fix Washington. Please help us build our team of loyal conservatives today. Sincerely, Senator Jim DeMint PS – If you’d like to help our cause, but don’t have the time to volunteer this week, we’d very much appreciate any financial contribution you can afford today. My vocal opposition to the liberal Washington special interest groups has really stirred up a hornet’s nest and they’ll be coming after me in next year’s election. Your financial help would mean the world to me.

the meaning behind the celebration on Thanksgiving Day.

Sometimes it’s a challenge to convince children that Thanksgiving Day is really not all about the food. Sure there’s turkey, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, and pie. Oh yeah, don’t forget the pie! But hidden inside this palate-driven holiday is an opportunity to teach the meaning behind the celebration. It is, after all, a day to remember God and give thanks.

The scriptures are filled with passages calling us to maintain a thankful heart. From Psalm 106:1, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good,” to Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians urging them to “give thanks in all circumstances” (5:18). It was this latter verse that sustained the Pilgrims, venturing to the New World, who ushered in the Thanksgiving Day celebration.

In the winter of 1620, Pilgrims, traveling by sea, settled at Plymouth, Massachusetts. They came for religious freedom — a desire to worship God and live according to Holy Scripture. But the country they found was bleak and uninviting, with several inches of snow already on the ground. Of the 102 passengers aboard the ship, the Mayflower, nearly half died during the first winter of the “great sickness.” Yet, according to settler Edward Winslow, they were grateful to God for his provision in their lives. A year later, the group celebrated with a feast of thanksgiving.

President Obama simultaneously speaks about the need for more federal spending and warns of the dangers of increased debt. What is his position?

The country appears to be going through a period of buyer’s remorse over the election of Barack Obama. The majority cobbled together by the President one year ago included the Democratic base, independents hoping for “change,” and many disaffected Republicans betrayed by the Bush Administration’s big-government neo-conservatism. It is unlikely that most of these voters favored an overt push toward socialism; however, this is what they have received. As the ‘tea parties’ illustrate, voters are not only confused – they are seriously concerned.

These concerns are justified. The Administration’s hard-left turn was evident from the outset. Ignoring expert advice to spend on job-creating infrastructure, Obama spent wildly on entitlements. Now, with rising grassroots discontent, a falling currency, and threats to America’s AAA credit rating, there is some evidence that the Administration is trying to hedge its bets through tough talk. Yet, they still have not taken any tough action. It is important in these times to have leaders we can trust to make the right decisions, even if they are unpopular. Obama, Bernanke, Reid, Dodd, Pelosi, Frank… These are not names that are trusted to make wise choices over expedient ones. The markets know it; the voters know it; and, judging by the price of gold, the rest of the world knows it too.

If the government continues to run the printing presses, as seems far more likely, hyperinflation will become a catastrophic event when the federal government faces outright default. The whole world awaits the decision of the direction of U.S. economic policy – toward default and probable world war, or isolationism and its complete social and economic control like Iran and North Korea. We all know what life would be like in either scenario – far worse than we ever thought.