Reagan vision shaped the modern world

The Australian ^ | June 07 2004

[knighthawk]

ON June 6, 1984, almost 20 years to the day before his death at 93, president Ronald Reagan stood on the beach at Normandy, just as another US president did yesterday. Addressing Allied veterans on the anniversary of D-Day, Mr Reagan said their deeds 40 years earlier had been motivated by the knowledge that "there is a profound moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest" and by the conviction that "democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honourable form of government ever devised by man". Mr Reagan's revolutionary presidency between 1980 and 1988 was driven by this same moral clarity and singleness of vision – and it transformed our world. By bringing an end to the Cold War, the Reagan vision opened a window during which the people of the West had no need to fear imminent destruction by the bitter enemies of freedom. Unfortunately, that window -- between the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 – turned out to be a mere dozen years. While Mr Reagan's chief legacy is in the geopolitical changes the Reagan doctrine ushered, he can also be credited with bringing to a close the era during which ever-expanding government welfare, and ever-rising taxes, were accepted as inevitable in the West. Thus, the vigorous, high-growth capitalist economies springing up now across the former Soviet bloc can be seen as the fruits of Reaganism in both its foreign policy and its domestic registers. The technological changes that would enable the information revolution and the internet were only a whisper by the end of the Reagan era, but by shifting the centre of gravity of the world decisively towards lightly regulated market economies and free trade, he may also be seen as one of the founding fathers of globalisation.

With Mr Reagan's death we lose one of the three figures who shaped the latter part of the 20th century; the other two, Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, are themselves elderly and ailing. The emergence of these three towering leaders onto the international stage – the Pope in 1978, Baroness Thatcher a year later, and Mr Reagan the year after that – was like a realignment in the stars, and an illustration that great men and women shape their times as much as they are shaped by them. Mr Reagan and Baroness Thatcher channelled into practical politics the economic theories of F.A. Hayek and his successors, which held that attempts by government to shape and direct the economy, even if sold as being in the interests of the underprivileged, would always end up benefiting groups with political influence. Likewise, overly generous welfare entitlements, also supposed to be in the interests of the poor, were really an invitation for them to remain stranded outside the productive economy. The Reagan-Thatcher era of tax cuts and deregulation ushered in an extraordinary period of sustained economic growth. While Mr Reagan cut disability benefits to half a million Americans, and reduced financial support for middle-class university students, in the course of his presidency more than 16 million jobs were created. The clearest evidence of the logic of the economic policies espoused by Mr Reagan and Baroness Thatcher is that those policies were warmly embraced by their successors from the other side of politics, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.

With the Pope, Mr Reagan shared an uncomplicated view that communism was evil, and a conviction that those who suffered under it shared this view. The alignment in the stars was completed in 1985 when Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Mr Gorbachev quickly saw that the tottering Soviet economy could no longer survive an arms race with the US. A series of historic meetings between him and Mr Reagan at Reykjavic, Moscow and Washington culminated with the signing of the intermediate-range nuclear force treaty in December 1987. Undoubtedly, the personal chemistry between Mr Gorbachev and Mr Reagan emboldened the former in his reform program. When Mr Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate on June 12, 1987, and famously challenged the Soviet leader – "Tear down this wall" – the writing was already well and truly on the wall for the system that had reduced the lives of millions of Europeans to serfdom.

If there was a contradiction in Reaganism, it was that the combined demands of tax cutting for growth, and defence spending for peace, put the stated aim of a balanced budget beyond reach. Mr Reagan pushed the federal US deficit out to $173 billion. After being reined in by Mr Clinton, it is now well over twice that amount, and as a result of the same internal and external dynamics. This is just one example of the extraordinary parallels between our time and the mid-1980s. Once again, the leadership of the US and Britain stands united behind free-market economic policies and the effort to rid the world of a terrible threat to security. Once again, a US president with a homilistic style is prepared to call evil by its name. Standing at Pointe Du Hoc in Normandy 20 years ago, Mr Reagan summed up the lesson of two world wars as the futility of a policy of isolationism by the US: "It is better to be here ready to protect the peace, than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost." Australia is fortunate that Ronald Reagan's vision was as unambiguous as that, and that it sustains among his successors today, given the threatening times we face.

[knighthawk]

Ping

[KC_Conspirator]

If you take a look at a map of the world today, you will see one greatly different than in 1981 when Reagan took office. You will see a Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, and Baltic States, etc., not to mention that all of Eastern Europe is free today. Reagan accomplished that and should be on Mt. Rushmore.

[Bob J]

Please go to the FR Reagan Vigil thread and pledge to organize/attend a vigil for Ronald Reagan in your area!