“We’re at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. And it’s been said if we lose that war and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours. History will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening. Well I think it’s time we ask ourselves if we still know the freedoms that were intended for us by the founding fathers.”
-Ronald Reagan, Rendezvous with Destiny speech, 1964
Today I finished re-watching “In the Face of Evil- Reagan’s War in Word and Deed.” This documentary, based on the book Regan’s War, is a fantastic review of Ronald Reagan’s crusade against defeat Communism. The movie reviews the different forms evil took in the twentieth century, Bolshevisms, Fascism, Communism, Nazism, and collectively refers to this evil as the “beast.”
In each of its forms, the beast exploits the dark side of humankind to enlist followers to gain power. Once in power the beast removes the basic forms of freedom from those under its control, freedom of religion, a free press, the power to express ones self, as well as anything representing the individual. In turn the movie reviews how time and again free society hopes the “wolf will pass the door” and leave it alone. Again and again mankind tries to negotiate with and to appease the beast, while at the same time vilifying as “war mongers” anyone who stands up and calls the beast what it is, evil.
Ronald Reagan, along with Pope John Paul II and Margaret Thatcher were the modern day crusaders against the beast represented by the U.S.S.R. Ronald Reagan called Soviet Communism what it was, an evil “insanity” that murdered over 100 million people over the course of its history, and enslaved millions more in its Gulags.
Today, both liberals and conservatives (okay mostly liberals) assume that Ronald Reagan was a typical conservative Republican. This couldn’t be farther than from the truth. As the movie points out, Reagan was the only “true outsider” elected to the Presidency in the twentieth century. He was a radical. Reagan rejected the Nixon/Kissinger policy of Détente that sought peaceful co-existence with the Soviets. Gerald Ford’s almost total denial of the dangers of Communism in Eastern Europe pushed Reagan to run against him, a sitting President, for the Republican nomination in 1976.
Once in the White House, Reagan unleashed an all out war with the soul aim of destroying the Soviet Union. The documentary reviews the economic, political, and psychological attacks the U.S. launched against the Soviet Union (and the U.S.S.R’s fight back). Along with a close band of fellow crusaders, Bill Casey, Casper Weinberger, Ed Meese, Jean Kirkpatrick, and others, Regan’s agenda took root around the world in myriad forms.
This movie should be required viewing for every school child in America, both as an example of true courage in the face of evil, and as a warning against the beast. To my liberal friends who (hilariously) insist the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight, watch this movie. To those who snicker at Reagan’s vision of the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), watch this movie and understand how critical that one program was, and why we may all be alive today because of "Star Wars."
Ronald Reagan, with the help of many others saved the world from a heinous form of the beast that murdered millions upon millions of human beings. I find it amazing that we can so clearly trace so much good and so many saved lives to the actions and faith of a single, great man.
Alas, the movie ends with images of September 11th, and points out that the beast lives on, just in a different form today. The beast reemerges in the guise of Radical Fundamentalism. Funny how even today they call those that call the beast what it is, “warmongers,” “Neo-cons,” “paranoids.” Someone (W?) must call it what it is, and never let up. Never surrender.
“Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid”
– Ronald Reagan 1981
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