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Ronald Reagan's “Evil Empire” Speech Excerpts from Remarks To Ronald Reagan’s “Evil Empire” speech in a position of military and moral inferiority. You know, I've always believed excerpts from remarks to the National Association of Evangelicals that old Screwtape reserved his best efforts for those of you in the church. So, March 8, 1983 in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was right and wrong and good and evil. only quoting Lenin, their guiding spirit, who said in 1920 that they repudiate all morality that proceeds from supernatural ideas—that's their name for I ask you to resist the attempts of those who would have you withhold your religion—or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely support for our efforts, this administration's efforts, to keep America strong subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is and free, while we negotiate real and verifiable reductions in the world's necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for nuclear arsenals and one day, with God's help, their total elimination. uniting the proletariat. While America's military strength is important, let me add here that I've Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary always maintained that the struggle now going on for the world will never be fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian decided by bombs or rockets, by armies or military might. The real crisis we powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930s. We see it face today is a spiritual one; at root, it is a test of moral will and faith. too often today. Whittaker Chambers, the man whose own religious conversion made him a This doesn't mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an witness to one of the terrible traumas of our time, the Hiss-Chambers case, understanding with them.... wrote that the crisis of the Western World exists to the degree in which the West is indifferent to God, the degree to which it collaborates in Yes, let us pray for the salvation of all of those who live in that totalitarian communism's attempt to make man stand alone without God. And then he darkness—pray they will discover the joy of knowing God. But until they do, said, for Marxism-Leninism is actually the second oldest faith, first let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with the words of temptation, "Ye shall be omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all as gods." peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world. The Western World can answer this challenge, he wrote, "but only provided It was C.S. Lewis who, in his unforgettable "Screwtape Letters," wrote: "The that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism's greatest evil is not done now in those sordid 'dens of crime' that Dickens faith in Man." loved to paint. It is not even done in concentration camps and labor camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, I believe we shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another seconded, carried and minuted) in clear, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth- written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice." human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would Well, because these "quiet men" do not "raise their voices," because they enslave their fellow man. For in the words of Isaiah: "He giveth power to the sometimes speak in soothing tones of brotherhood and peace, because, like faint; and to them that have no might He increased strength. But they other dictators before them, they're always making "their final territorial that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with demand," some would have us accept them at their word and accommodate wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary. ." ourselves to their aggressive impulses. But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simple-minded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom. So, I urge you to speak out against those who would place the United States Ronald Reagan about only when the farmer and businessman enjoy economic freedom. The excerpts from remarks at the Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin German leaders reduced tariffs, expanded free trade, lowered taxes. From June 12, 1987 1950 to 1960 alone, the standard of living in West Germany and Berlin doubled. Behind me stands a wall that encircles the free sectors of this city, part of a vast system of barriers that divides the entire continent of Europe. From the Where four decades ago there was rubble, today in West Berlin there is the Baltic, south, those barriers cut across Germany in a gash of barbed wire, greatest industrial output of any city in Germany--busy office blocks, fine concrete, dog runs, and guard towers. Farther south, there may be no visible, homes and apartments, proud avenues, and the spreading lawns of parkland. no obvious wall. But there remain armed guards and checkpoints all the Where a city's culture seemed to have been destroyed, today there are two same--still a restriction on the right to travel, still an instrument to impose great universities, orchestras and an opera, countless theaters, and museums. upon ordinary men and women the will of a totalitarian state. Yet it is here in Where there was want, today there's abundance--food, clothing, Berlin where the wall emerges most clearly; here, cutting across your city, automobiles--the wonderful goods of the Ku'damm. From devastation, from where the news photo and the television screen have imprinted this brutal utter ruin, you Berliners have, in freedom, rebuilt a city that once again ranks division of a continent upon the mind of the world. Standing before the as one of the greatest on earth. The Soviets may have had other plans. But my Brandenburg Gate, every man is a German, separated from his fellow men. friends, there were a few things the Soviets didn't count on--Berliner Herz, Every man is a Berliner, forced to look upon a scar. Berliner Humor, ja, und Berliner Schnauze. [Berliner heart, Berliner humor, yes, and a Berliner Schnauze.] President von Weizsacker has said, "The German question is open as long as the Brandenburg Gate is closed." Today I say: As long as the gate is closed, as In the 1950s, Khrushchev predicted: "We will bury you." But in the West long as this scar of a wall is permitted to stand, it is not the German question today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well- alone that remains open, but the question of freedom for all mankind. Yet I being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see do not come here to lament. For I find in Berlin a message of hope, even in failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want the shadow of this wall, a message of triumph. of the most basic kind--too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the In this season of spring in 1945, the people of Berlin emerged from their air- entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to raid shelters to find devastation. Thousands of miles away, the people of the prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with United States reached out to help. And in 1947 Secretary of State--as you've comity and peace. Freedom is the victor. been told--George Marshall announced the creation of what would become known as the Marshall Plan. Speaking precisely 40 years ago this month, he And now the Soviets themselves may, in a limited way, be coming to said: "Our policy is directed not against any country or doctrine, but against understand the importance of freedom. We hear much from Moscow about a hunger, poverty, desperation, and chaos." new policy of reform and openness. Some political prisoners have been released. Certain foreign news broadcasts are no longer being jammed. Some In the Reichstag a few moments ago, I saw a display commemorating this economic enterprises have been permitted to operate with greater freedom 40th anniversary of the Marshall Plan. I was struck by the sign on a burnt- from state control.
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