Posted on 03/13/2008 12:23:15 PM PDT by Caleb1411
It was 25 years ago, on March 8, 1983, that President Ronald Reagan addressed the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Fla., where he characterized the Soviet Union as the "focus of evil in the modern world"—an "evil empire."
The president's pronouncement was a shot heard round the world, as were his motivations: "There is sin and evil in the world," said Reagan to his Christian brothers, "and we're enjoined by Scripture and the Lord Jesus to oppose it with all our might."
Those who wished to accommodate rather than oppose the USSR, and who were not as troubled by atheistic communism, denounced the speech. In The New York Times, Anthony Lewis described the speech as "sectarian," "outrageous," "simplistic," and "terribly dangerous," before concluding it was "primitive—the only word for it." Historian Henry Steele Commager asserted, "It was the worst presidential speech in American history, and I've read them all." This was because of its "gross appeal to religious prejudice."
Certain quarters in the Kremlin hoped to turn Reagan's remarks into a propaganda tool to deride the president as a warmonger. The tactic backfired. One case in point was Natan Sharansky and his fellow inmates inside Permanent Labor Camp 35—the gulag. The Soviet prison guards shared Reagan's "primitive" words with Sharansky. Rather than being horrified, Sharansky couldn't contain his excitement. The moment his persecutors left, he eagerly tapped out Reagan's words in Morse code on his cell wall, a pattern repeated throughout the ecstatic prison camp, as the words "Evil Empire" echoed from its very source. Sharansky called Reagan's words "a great encourager for us."
The Evil Empire speech was not an anti-communist rant. It was a moral statement laying out a just cause in a just war against a militantly atheistic empire that killed tens of millions. It was a historic line in the sand 25 years ago.
—Paul Kengor, a professor at Grove City College, wrote The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism (2006)
In hindsight, his vision, his positions, his actions make more sense than ever and are relevent even today.
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and, it was also anti-communist rant.
A sign of true greatness and principles. Great principles don't age. Unlike liberals who positions change with the wind.
How would Reagan deal with China today?
However, we can't roll back the clock and we have to deal with what is, not the past. This is another great Clinton accomplishment which goes ignored by the media. Reagan inherited a mess too, after Carter. He too had to deal with the stage set the way it was, not the way he would have liked it.
Reason # 2,546 not to waste money reading the NYT.
Dang! I enlisted in the U.S. Army two weeks before this speech.
When the Soviet empire was beginning to break apart. I remember seeing a chaotic scene in the central square of Moscow shown on an MSM news program. The correspondent stopped a person and asked him what the current hub-bub meant. The guy spoke in broken English to say: “It means the evil empire is dead!”
Thus spoke the Russian man on the street. Reagan was great!
Ronaldus Magnus was even more prescient than we thought.
As in, the Evil Empire he described in 1983 is now being reincarnated as V.V. Putin’s “Russia Resurgent”.
In other words, THEY’RE BAAAAACK!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmlQJzw_w0 Evil Empire, part 1 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLPZt3ZTLfI&feature=related Part 2 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmD1lobXjVA&feature=related Part 3 of 4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5ZMeFXh4UI&feature=related Part 4 of 4
Money quote “...the focus of evil in the modern world...” is about 45 seconds into part 4.
The West in fractured with petty politicians playing their games. The common person has a low threat picture. The Russians are back, but today with a hybrid state that is still led by a regime but more or less applies free market practices and has access to the world markets with unparalleled precedence. Rouge states today are at a point where they to can join the nuclear club, master the science of long range missiles (inter continental). We live in a world more heterogeneous than ever, more global, with more trade, more movement of people, ease of communication and access to information. The threats to the old league of Western free nations is today greater than EVER before. Typically when nations or systems fall, as with the Roman empire, people are not even really aware of their systems demise. The Romans didn't see their empire as fading or decaying, even towards the end! Fat, decedent, complacent, our answer to this world will be an Obama, and that will in my opinion create a landslide not only for us, but the entire West which even if some despise and envy us, are all tied together.
Then you get credit for volunteering when you didn't know what a great CIC you were signing up for! Congratulations.
Hey Obama!!! Pay attention. This is how you make history. When you take a stand against the advice of your inner circle and the power brokers, when you stand on priciple and a strong moral foundation.
NOT when you have to react to an appaling lack of judgement as indicated by a 20 year exposure of yourself and your family to anti-American, racist, and ignorant propaganda.
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