Sen. Ted Cruz
The Daily Signal
11/09/2014
Twenty-five years ago today, the world changed when the seemingly impenetrable wall between East and West Germany was torn down by a people determined to break the stranglehold of totalitarian communism…
…In 1987, Ronald Reagan stood in front of the grim barrier that had been erected in 1961 to forcibly contain the freedom represented by West Berlin and demanded its removal, “General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization … Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
With his allies, those tireless advocates for religious and economic freedom Pope John Paul II and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Reagan refused to accept the tyranny of communism as inevitable.
Less than a year after Reagan left office, his vision became a reality. No wall could hold back the waves of protest that swept from the Baltic through eastern Europe.
On Nov. 9, 1989, freedom prevailed…
The complete article is at The Daily Signal.
Related: 25 years since the Berlin Wall was torn down
…Marxism is based on a false premise, that human nature is only an artifact of the society in which people live. Change society, argued Marx, and you change human nature. Perfect society and you perfect humankind. Therefore, the interests of society as a whole — as determined by the elite of the Communist Party — were what was important. Individuals were expected to willingly subordinate their own interests to those of society.
But while the interests of society as a whole are an important part of the self-interest of individuals — human beings, after all, are among the most social of all animals — they are not the only interests. And the pursuit of those other self-interests, such as one’s own interests and those of the immediate family and, especially, one’s children, cannot be suppressed voluntarily. They can only be suppressed by force or the credible threat of it…
Update: Fall Of The Berlin Wall: Fences To Liberty Still Remain
Twenty-five years ago this month, the world watched as jubilant Germans tore down the Berlin Wall. Its fall was a triumph for human freedom.
Yet today, governments all over the world have erected walls of a different sort. Public debt crises, suffocating regulations, irresponsible monetary policies and rampant corruption aren’t made of steel and concrete. But they’re no less a barrier to freedom and prosperity.
It’s time to tear down today’s Berlin Walls and ensure that people the world over can live freely…
