Somewhere around 20 years ago the Soviet Union finally had the good sense to realize it had failed. This realization was not inevitable, the the underlying failure was. When the wall finally fell, I was a trained tank crewman in the US military who had spend the previous 3 years under the realization that war could erupt at any moment. The Soviet leadership, having utterly destroyed their nation on the altar of Collectivism might well have decided to go down swinging, to seize by force what they had neither the wit or courage to acquire by moving towards freedom.
In a very real way, Ronald Reagan saved the world.
I know, I know, the left and even many on the right won’t like that reality. This is an age where courage is not a virtue but cowardice is. The only leaders with any courage these days seem to be the insane ones. Those charged with the protection of freedom cloak cowardice and appeasement in the mien of “compromise” and “discussion”. Discussion and negotiation are fine tools that well meaning men can use to co-exist: but it has no place in the dealings between men and animals.
[Achilles to Hector] There are no pacts between lions and men. – Troy
The Berlin wall was not torn down by Reagan, or indeed by any single man. The wall came down for the same reasons the jail keepers of the Soviet Union finally were forced to face their failure because many, many regular people finally said “we will not be your slaves any more”. This defiance was the only possible because those people were given a stark choice, and they knew that someone somewhere had their backs. That someone was Reagan, and that choice was simple freedom and progress or slavery and stagnation.
There are many who will downplay the contribution that Reagan made to the destruction of the Soviets. They will tell you he was just one man, and that no one man matters that much. They are lying to you.
The Soviet Union foundered on the million rocks of their citizens, but the keel was snapped on the rock hard will of an actor turned president who had the balls to look all their might dead in the face and flat out declare that he would not be moved or ignored.
Ronald Regan was the reason i got interested in politics at all. I remember watching him on TV and being struck by how proud he was, how dignified. He was a man i could not imagine as anything but a good man. I became a republican because of him, and joined the young republicans at the age, i kid not, of 13. I worked fairs and rallys, victory parties and defeat consolations, for something like 4 years. All because he inspired me to do something with my life that could help other people, and to get involved in being the change i wanted to see in the world.
I saw a show about him once that interviewed people who knew him. They said one of his favorite life experiences was being a life guard on a river, and how he had saved peoples' lives there. At the end of the long road of his life, as almost all his tremendous achievements lay forgotten by him, he still spoke of those days on the river. I tried to imagine that. A man who had saved the world, a man who had lead the greatest nation on earth for eight years, a man who faced the most powerful enemy ever to threaten freedom and not flinch at all – he did not bask in the glory of those grand things. Just in being a lifeguard on a quiet river, saving peoples lives and doing the right thing. I may have misremembered this anecdote, but I'm sure I'm not far off on it.
I don't believe in heaven, but if there is one – Regan should be there. He was a good man, who did good things. And he saved the world.