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Sunday, June 06, 2004

# Posted 11:51 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

REAGAN REMEMBERED: Rather than eulogize the President, I find it best to let his own words speak for him. On June 8, 1982, Reagan spoke to the British Parliament at Westminster. He declared that
In an ironic sense Karl Marx was right. We are witnessing today a great revolutionary crisis, a crisis where the demands of the economic order are conflicting directly with those of the political order. But the crisis is happening not in the free, non-Marxist West, but in the home of Marxist-Leninism, the Soviet Union. It is the Soviet Union that runs against the tide of history by denying human freedom and human dignity to its citizens...

Now, I don't wish to sound overly optimistic, yet the Soviet Union is not immune from the reality of what is going on in the world. It has happened in the past -- a small ruling elite either mistakenly attempts to ease domestic unrest through greater repression and foreign adventure, or it chooses a wiser course. It begins to allow its people a voice in their own destiny. Even if this latter process is not realized soon, I believe the renewed strength of the democratic movement, complemented by a global campaign for freedom, will strengthen the prospects for arms control and a world at peace...

What I am describing now is a plan and a hope for the long term -- the march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ash-heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people.
Who else dared to believe in 1982 that the Soviet Union was on its death bed? No matter how many times I read Reagan's address, I find his prescience to be almost incredible. Yet as Reagan himself said, all the evidence was there in plain sight. Who in their right mind could ever have believed that the Soviet system was as viable as its Western counterpart?

Reagan 1982 speech was also remarkable because of its prescient declaration that promoting democracy abroad must serve as the foundation of American foreign policy:
Around the world today, the democratic revolution is gathering new strength...

We must be staunch in our conviction that freedom is not the sole prerogative of a lucky few, but the inalienable and universal right of all human beings. So states the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which, among other things, guarantees free elections.

The objective I propose is quite simple to state: to foster the infrastructure of democracy, the system of a free press, unions, political parties, universities, which allows a people to choose their own way to develop their own culture, to reconcile their own differences through peaceful means.

This is not cultural imperialism, it is providing the means for genuine self-determination and protection for diversity. Democracy already flourishes in countries with very different cultures and historical experiences. It would be cultural condescension, or worse, to say that any people prefer dictatorship to democracy. Who would voluntarily choose not to have the right to vote, decide to purchase government propaganda handouts instead of independent newspapers, prefer government to worker-controlled unions, opt for land to be owned by the state instead of those who till it, want government repression of religious liberty, a single political party instead of a free choice, a rigid cultural orthodoxy instead of democratic tolerance and diversity?...

The task I've set forth will long outlive our own generation. But together, we too have come through the worst. Let us now begin a major effort to secure the best -- a crusade for freedom that will engage the faith and fortitude of the next generation. For the sake of peace and justice, let us move toward a world in which all people are at last free to determine their own destiny.
When President Bush describes the democratic future that belongs to the people of Iraq, every word is vintage Reagan. Yet just as Bush preaches the gospel of democracy while failing to invest the effort and resources necessary to make it grow, so did Reagan fail to understand what sort of practical steps might have to be taken to implement his compelling vision.

For now, I will hold off on further criticism. For one moment, it is worth meditating on nothing more than the profound insights of a man who was a great patriot but never had pretensions of being a great philosopher.
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