The Reagan Way – WSJ

Addressing the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, Florida on March 8, 1983, President Reagan—being Reagan—naturally started with some humor:

An evangelical minister and a politician arrived at Heaven’s gate one day together. And St. Peter, after doing all the necessary formalities, took them in hand to show them where their quarters would be. And he took them to a small, single room with a bed, a chair, and a table and said this was for the clergyman. And the politician was a little worried about what might be in store for him. And he couldn’t believe it then when St. Peter stopped in front of a beautiful mansion with lovely grounds, many servants, and told him that these would be his quarters.

And he couldn’t help but ask, he said, “But wait, how—there’s something wrong-how do I get this mansion while that good and holy man only gets a single room?” And St. Peter said, “You have to understand how things are up here. We’ve got thousands and thousands of clergy. You’re the first politician who ever made it.”

Then the President talked about the role of faith in the American founding, contemporary debates over morality and religion in public life, and parental rights, among other topics. Finally he addressed the great struggle against communist tyranny.

“There is sin and evil in the world,” said Reagan, and acknowledged:

Our nation, too, has a legacy of evil with which it must deal. The glory of this land has been its capacity for transcending the moral evils of our past. For example, the long struggle of minority citizens for equal rights, once a source of disunity and civil war, is now a point of pride for all Americans. We must never go back. There is no room for racism, anti-Semitism, or other forms of ethnic and racial hatred in this country.

I know that you’ve been horrified, as have I, by the resurgence of some hate groups preaching bigotry and prejudice. Use the mighty voice of your pulpits and the powerful standing of your churches to denounce and isolate these hate groups in our midst. The commandment given us is clear and simple: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

But whatever sad episodes exist in our past, any objective observer must hold a positive view of American history, a history that has been the story of hopes fulfilled and dreams made into reality. Especially in this century, America has kept alight the torch of freedom, but not just for ourselves but for millions of others around the world.

And this brings me to my final point today. During my first press conference as President, in answer to a direct question, I pointed out that, as good Marxist-Leninists, the Soviet leaders have openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is that which will further their cause, which is world revolution. I think I should point out I was 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 religion—or ideas that are outside class conceptions. Morality is entirely subordinate to the interests of class war. And everything is moral that is necessary for the annihilation of the old, exploiting social order and for uniting the proletariat.

Well, I think the refusal of many influential people to accept this elementary fact of Soviet doctrine illustrates an historical reluctance to see totalitarian powers for what they are. We saw this phenomenon in the 1930’s. We see it too often today.

This doesn’t mean we should isolate ourselves and refuse to seek an understanding with them. I intend to do everything I can to persuade them of our peaceful intent. . . . At the same time, however, they must be made to understand we will never compromise our principles and standards. We will never give away our freedom.

. . . let us be aware that while they preach the supremacy of the state, declare its omnipotence over individual man, and predict its eventual domination of all peoples on the Earth, they are the focus of evil in the modern world.

. . . I believe we shall rise to the challenge. I believe that communism is another sad, bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages even now are being written. I believe this because the source of our strength in the quest for human freedom is not material, but spiritual. And because it knows no limitation, it must terrify and ultimately triumph over those who would enslave their fellow man.

To many in the media the speech raised the specter of war. But Reagan knew that the best way to avoid one was to maintain a strong and resolute defense while seizing every opportunity to undermine and discredit and expose the monstrous Soviet regime, accelerating its inevitable collapse.

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Speaking of the Evil Empire
Katja Hoyer writes in the Washington Post about a project to piece together the detailed history of communist oppression in one of the captive nations of the old Soviet empire:

On average, it takes about nine hours to complete a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. At that rate, 600 million pieces take centuries. That is the task Germany is confronting as it launches a new attempt to piece together a dark chapter of its past.

A few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the East German secret police, known as the Stasi, attempted to destroy the hoard of information it had collected on the country’s 16 million citizens. That effort created over 16,000 sacks of shredded paper. Now, more than three decades later, the German government is launching a new effort to restore the documents with the help of information technology.

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Bureaucratic Political Perfection: Failures at Every Level of Government
Daniel Di Martino writes in City Journal:

The busing of migrants to New York outraged many, including me . . . at first. Like many of those riding on the buses, I am originally from Venezuela. Having come to America seven years ago in a much less precarious situation, I felt compassion for these new arrivals. When a friend from my church told me that she had met an asylum-seeking family in a hotel, I agreed to visit the shelter and help.

What I saw was the abject failure of national and local immigration policies. A Colombian family who had come with three kids and an elderly parent claimed to be persecuted by guerrillas but couldn’t name the group or cite any evidence to back up their story. They were comfortable living in the hotel, but they didn’t have a kitchen and complained about the food. Asked if they were working, they said they didn’t have permits; while the husband had been a barber and the wife a nail-salon worker, they wouldn’t be hired without a state license to practice in those professions. They were misinformed about the immigration system, telling me that they thought that, after a year living in the United States, they could get the equivalent of a green card. Such a policy does not exist; if they don’t file an asylum claim within a year, they can be deported. They don’t know how to do that, and they can’t pay for an immigration lawyer. Finally, according to the father, their teenage daughter had attended a Manhattan public school but stopped going after other girls threatened to kill her if she didn’t traffic drugs for them.

Many of these problems have policy solutions. But rather than be constructive, activists are stirring up the migrants living in shelters and lying to them for political purposes. One video showed someone instigating the Venezuelan migrants around him to protest. “This isn’t a shelter, it’s a detention center,” he said of the three-star Watson Hotel. “The city and the state have enough money to shelter everyone.”

Reality is more sobering . . .

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Who Are You Calling Swiss?
“Toblerone is no longer Swiss enough to feature the Matterhorn on its packaging,” reads the headline on story from Rachel Treisman, who reports for NPR:

Toblerone chocolate bars are famous for their triangular peaks. But they will soon be losing their most famous one: the image of the Matterhorn prominently displayed on their packaging.

Toblerone was created in the Swiss city of Bern in 1908 by Theodor Tobler, with its distinctive shape reportedly inspired by his mountainous homeland and the Matterhorn in particular.

It has called itself Swiss-made ever since—until now, thanks to the country’s strict requirements governing which products can legally say that.

Mondelez International,

the U.S. company that owns Toblerone, is shifting part of its production to Slovakia starting in July, in a move announced last year aimed at cutting costs.

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It’s Always In the Last Place You Look
“Mummy at least 600 years old found in food delivery bag,” ABC News, March 1

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James Freeman is the co-author of “The Cost: Trump, China and American Revival.”

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(Lisa Rossi helps compile Best of the Web. Thanks to Jackie Harty, Tony Lima and Ethel Fenig.)

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