A Quote by Jeff Sharlet
Liberals were just as engaged and using the rhetoric of a sort of a battle with the Soviets and with Communism in general, with an evil empire.
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National Defense A strong USA defense brought down the Soviet Union. It was Ronald Reagan - first in a speech at Notre Dame University in May 1981, then his 'Evil Empire' speech of March 1983 - who most eloquently declared communism's imminent demise. Reagan was right. And even Soviet officials attribute Ronald Reagan's rhetoric and foreign policy to bringing down that 'evil empire.' By Christmas Day, 1990, the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Liberals wished it were other things.
In the old days, the Soviets were using space as a selling point for communism.
Stalinism - or communism - is the only ideology Americans know how to demonise... no one knows what it is, it's just a synonym for the Empire of Evil.
Two significant developments in the past several decades have been the collapse of communism as an ideology and the general acceptance, in rhetoric, if not practice, of liberal democracy.
"For 46 years, we were engaged in a worldwide battle against communism". "During that time, there were countless heroes, who served in our nation's Armed Forces and played a critical role in America's triumph. These men and women, who sacrificed so much for so many, deserve to be awarded the Cold War Service Medal in recognized of their faithful service to their country and tireless defense of freedom around the world."
We have seen many instances where the free world didn't seem to understand the nature of evil or the battle against evil in their time. We've watched Nazism and fascism and imperial Japan and communism and totalitarianism, and now it seems to be we're all battling against terrorism.
Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time, and ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down - they are truly down.
It seems that the most important thing about Reagan was his anti-Communism and his reputation as a hawk who saw the Soviet Union as an 'evil empire.'
f you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals - if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
I have one of the strongest records in fighting for senior citizens. I led the effort to prevent cuts to Social Security. But I think for some seniors, they remember the "evil empire" of the Soviet Union. They conflated the term "democratic socialism" with communism.
Liberals and conservatives are opponents in the most literal sense, each using the myth of pure evil to demonize the other side and unite there own.
When communism collapsed in 1989, the big story that had been hardwired into citizens of western countries - that of the global battle against a distant dark and evil force - came to an abrupt end.
The good were worthy of note because they battled and that battle was a great story, whereas the evil were evil because of moral laziness, or weakness, and that was ultimately a dull and uninteresting affair.
You can talk about capitalism and communism and all that sort of thing, but the important thing is the struggle everybody is engaged in to get better living conditions, and they are not interested too much in government.
A lot of my comic influences are distinctly American: Woody Allen and Bob Hope, for example. They were always the underdogs who were using wit to sort of battle their way through. And it seems to me that a lot of contemporary U.S. comedies are shot through with losers. None of the characters in 'The Big Bang Theory,' for instance, are studs.
The colonial power tended to be France or Britain, and the Soviets were proclaimed as anti-imperialists. So, if you align yourself with the Soviets, it fits nicely with that kind of rhetorical division, but in reality it does not get you anywhere.
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