The Wall: 20 Years On

Twenty years ago one of the most remarkable events of the 20th century took place. Democracy, liberty, and individual rights triumphed over the forces of tyranny, oppression, and collectivism.

It is a tragedy that President Obama has chosen to not attend this great anniversary in Berlin. Ronald Reagan did more than anyone to bring the Cold War to end, not through war or appeasement, but through the steadfast ideology that freedom would triumph over statism (or, socialism). He did not accept the USSR, much to the chagrin of the left and elites in academia and the media, rather he dismissed the Soviet Union as a historical absurdity. Reagan challenged the Soviets confident that free markets and individualism would triumph over the collectivist, central planned monstrosity that trampled the dignity of people and killed without remorse or mercy.

Gorbachev is wrongly credited with ending the Cold War, but Gorbachev's plans for reform were intended to preserve and continue the existence of the Soviet Union while tens of thousands languished in gulags, disappeared in the night, or suffered at the hands of the KGB, Stasi, and other secret police. By the time the USSR finally collapsed, millions would be die at the hands of the most oppressive ideology to ever exist on Earth.

It is shameful that so many Obama administration officials have spoken warmly or even identified themselves as communists, Marxists, or socialists. Their desire to increase government at the expense of the free market and the choice of individuals in health care, cap and tax, while taking over entire industries reflects a pattern that is directly opposed to the ideological framework upon which America was founded. Freedom can only exist when people are free from government, not dependent upon it's programs or agencies.

The media has, and continues to encourage the growth of the state in concert with the political left in the United States. They even have gone so far as to apologize for such tyrannies as the Soviet Union, as Dan Rather did in 1988, and even as recently as this year by NYT's Thomas Friedman who lamented the difficulties and slowness of democracy in comparison to the autocratic efficiency of the Chinese (never mind their horrible human rights abuses).

For the left, democracy has always been a stumbling block to the expansion of government. It is for this reason that the people must be ever vigilant against unchecked government expansion of any kind, no matter how benevolent it may seem.

Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free. -- Ronald Reagan