2 years ago

Truth of Peace — VFW Convention Pt 5 – #RonaldReagan 1980 * #PITD
Address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Chicago August 18, 1980 Excerpt
For a nation such as ours, arms are important only to prevent others from conquering us or our allies. We are not a belligerent people. Our purpose is not to prepare for war or wish harm to others. When we had great strength in the years following World War II, we used that strength not for territorial gain but to defend others.

Our foreign policy should be to show by example the greatness of our system and the strength of American ideals. The truth is we would like nothing better than to see the Russian people living in freedom and dignity instead of being trapped in a backwash of history as they are. The greatest fallacy of the Lenin-Marxist philosophy is that it is the "wave of the future." Everything about it is primitive: compulsion in place of free initiative; coercion in place of law; militarism in place of trade; and empire-building in place of self-determination; and luxury for a chosen few at the expense of the many. We have seen nothing like it since the Age of Feudalism.
When people have had a free choice, where have they chosen Communism? What other system in the world has to build walls to keep its people in?

Recently academician Andrei Sakharov, one of Russia's great scientists and presently under house arrest, smuggled a statement out of the Soviet Union. It turned up in the New York Times Magazine of June 8, where Sakharov wrote: "I consider the United States the historically determined leader of the movement toward a pluralist and free society, vital to mankind."
He is right. We have strayed off course many times and we have been careless with machinery of freedom bequeathed to us by the Founding Fathers, but, somehow, it has managed to survive our frailties. One of those Founding Fathers spoke the truth when he said "God intended America to be free."
We have been a refuge for the persecuted and down-trodden from every corner of the world for 200 years. Today some of us are concerned by the latest influx of refugees, that boat people from Southeast Asia and from Cuba—all fleeing from the inhumanity of Communism. We worry about our capacity to care for them. I believe we must take a concerted effort to help them, and that others in the world should share in the responsibility.
But let's do a better job of exporting Americanism. Let's meet our responsibility to keep the peace at the same time we maintain without compromise our principles and ideals. Let's help the world eliminate the conditions which cause citizens to become refugees.
I believe it is our pre-ordained destiny to show all mankind that they, too, can be free without having to leave their native shore.

If you have any suggestions, questions or concerns please leave them below. Thanks for watching and make it an outstanding day! *** I am a proud American, blessed father, a staunch 2A activist and a Marine Corps Veteran that just happens to be 100% blind. This is a look at the Second Amendment, firearms, self Defense, Constitutionally protected rights, Liberty and Freedom from the perspective of a Visually Impaired, Blind American.
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Reagan Presidential Library:
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http://www.reaganfoundation.org

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