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July 09, 2009
How the Russians ended the Cold War. Despite Reagan!
This is getting to be to be a pattern. Last month it was President Obama's mischaracterization of Muslim history and his assertion that we were in debt to Islam for Western culture. I wondered whether he really believed what he said, or was merely trying to imply it for political advantage. And now the president is busily mischaracterizing the Cold War. To the Russians. You know, the guys who were our number one enemy during that period? (Should I continue to give him the benefit of the doubt? I realize that there's a White House directive that what Barack Obama says should not be taken literally, but this is getting ridiculous.) In Obama's version of history, Soviet communism (which he referred to not by name but as "old political and economic restrictions") came to an end through some sort of brotherly mass movement: "The change did not come from any one nation," he told an audience of Russian students. "The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful."Yeah, right. They just sort of sat down and decided to discard that evil old Communism stuff and be good! As Rosett notes, the United States -- especially the noteworthy leadership of Ronald Reagan -- apparently does not fit into Barack Obama's Cold War narrative. ...missing from Obama's philosophy is the immense role played by the U.S. America stood for decades as a bulwark of freedom. Americans fought real wars in such places as Korea and Vietnam. Americans kept brilliantly alive a philosophy of democratic government and free markets, which offered a beacon to oppressed people of the world, and exported both ideas and inventions that have vastly enriched mankind. Following the fiascoes of Jimmy Carter--on whose watch the Soviets invaded Afghanistan and Iran had its Islamic revolution--Americans elected Ronald Reagan. His version of "reset" was to stop the appeasing and apologizing, and to reassert America's system as one of virtue and America's global role as one of both moral and military strength.Yes, I lived through that period and remember it well. The fall of Communism (after years of a seemingly eternal Cold War) stands out as one of the most amazing events in my lifetime. For most Americans (even those who hated Ronald Reagan) it's been pretty much a no-brainer that Reagan's policies did more to bring an end to the Cold War than any other single factor. "Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down this Wall!" That was in 1987 -- when Barack Obama was more than nine years old. In 1990, they did in fact tear down the wall, and Reagan was there again -- this time actually swinging a hammer at it.
I don't mean to dwell on old, well-known history, and normally I wouldn't. But ths time, President Obama's apparent disdain for history really got my attention. You'd think if there was one thing an American president should remember, it would be the end of the Cold War, and the vital role of the United States and Ronald Reagan during that period. Still, everyone has memory lapses, and it must be tough to have to give a speech to a group of Russian students and make it mealy-mouthed enough not to offend them. I might have been inclined to stew silently over this if it hadn't been for something Rick Moran linked earlier in a post about Barack Obama's radicalism at Columbia. The year was 1983. The "Tear Down This Wall" speech was four years away, and in an essay titled "BREAKING THE WAR MENTALITY," Barack Obama called Reagan "intransigent," saying that his policies could "bring about a dangerous rift" (doesn't that sound familiar?) and that he was playing into the Russians' hands. The Reagan administration's stalling at the Geneva taIks on nuclear weapons has thus already caused severe tension and could ultimately bring about a dangerous rift between the United States and Western Europe. By being intransigent, Reagan is playing directly into the Russians' hands.Riiight. That's why Communism collapsed. Like Rick Moran, I realize that people change and sometimes get more sensible as they grow older. But right now I find myself wondering whether the above mindset might still be driving the Obama narrative. Little wonder that in Obama's mind, the Russians must get the credit for having been the "peacemakers" all along. No wonder he can't bear to mention Reagan or the United States. posted by Eric on 07.09.09 at 04:00 PM |
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Obama's self-chosen disability...
Deterministic systems, ideological symbols of abdication
by man from his natural role as earth's Choicemaker,
inevitably degenerate into collectivism; the negation of
singularity, they become a conglomerate plural-based
system of measuring human value. Blunting an awareness
of diversity, blurring alternatives, and limiting the
selective creative process, they are self-relegated to
a passive and circular regression.
Tampering with man's selective nature endangers his
survival for it would render him impotent and obsolete
by denying the tools of variety, individuality,
perception, criteria, selectivity, and progress.
Coercive attempts produce revulsion, for such acts
are contrary to an indeterminate nature and nature's
indeterminate off-spring, man the Choicemaker.
Until the oppressors discover that wisdom only just
begins with a respectful acknowledgment of The Creator,
The Creation, and The Choicemaker, they will be ever
learning but never coming to a knowledge of the truth.
The rejection of Creator-initiated standards relegates
the mind of man to its own primitive, empirical, and
delimited devices. It is thus that the human intellect
cannot ascend and function at any level higher than the
criteria by which it perceives and measures values.
Additionally, such rejection of transcendent criteria
self-denies man the vision and foresight essential to
decision-making for survival and progression. He is left,
instead, with the redundant wreckage of expensive hind-
sight, including human institutions characterized by
averages, mediocrity, and regression.
Humanism, mired in the circular and mundane egocentric
predicament, is ill-equipped to produce transcendent
criteria. Evidenced by those who do not perceive
superiority and thus find themselves beset by the shifting
winds of the carnal-ego; i.e., moods, feelings, desires,
appetites, etc., the mind becomes subordinate: a mere
device for excuse-making and rationalizing self-justifica-
tion.
The carnal-ego rejects criteria and self-discipline for such
instruments are tools of the mind and the attitude. The
appetites of the flesh have no need of standards for at the
point of contention standards are perceived as alien, re-
strictive, and inhibiting. Yet, the very survival of our
physical nature itself depends upon a maintained sover-
eignty of the mind and of the spirit.
It remained, therefore, to the initiative of a personal
and living Creator to traverse the human horizon and
fill the vast void of human ignorance with an intelli-
gent and definitive faith. Man is thus afforded the
prime tool of the intellect - a Transcendent Standard
by which he may measure values in experience, anticipate
results, and make enlightened and visionary choices.
Only the unique and superior God-man Person can deserved-
ly displace the ego-person from his predicament and free
the individual to measure values and choose in a more
excellent way. That sublime Person was indicated in the
words of the prophet Amos, "...said the Lord, Behold,
I will set a plumbline in the midst of my people Israel."
Y'shua Mashiyach Jesus said, "If I be lifted up I will
draw all men unto myself."
As long as some choose to abdicate their personal reality
and submit to the delusions of humanism, determinism, and
collectivism, just so long will they be subject and re-
acting only, to be tossed by every impulse emanating from
others. Those who abdicate such reality may, in perfect
justice, find themselves weighed in the balances of their
own choosing.
"No one is smarter than their criteria."
Jim Baxter
semper fidelis
- from "2010 AD: The Season of Generation-Choicemaker"
http://www.choicemaker.net/