"Short-circuiting the long-established principles of patient negotiation leads to war, not peace." - Jimmy Carter
On this 93rd birthday of the Anti-Christ, Gipper-worshipping dittoheads across the blogosphere are squawking like lovesick parrots about how "Reagan won the cold war". But history will reveal the real truth - the man who actually won the cold war was none other than the 39th president of the United States, James Earl Carter.
Carter strongly suspected that the Soviet Union might be a bully. From his grade school years, Carter also knew that the best way to deal with a bully is to make yourself very small and hope they don't notice you. Failing that, offer them your lunch money. Whatever you do, do NOT confront them - it will only make them angrier. Meekly submitting to a wedgie is better than getting a bloody nose. And perhaps in time, the bully will realize you're no threat and let you pal around with him. Carter applied this policy of détente to his dealings with the Soviet Union.
The French word for "I'm your bitch", détente with the Soviets was the dreamchild of Henry Kissinger and Tricky Dick Nixon. But it was future nobel laureate, Jimmy Carter, who perfected it to an artform. When the Soviets began rattling their nuclear sabres in the 70's, Carter cut national defense in order to make us seem less threatening. When the Soviets appeared unmoved by his overtures of peace, Carter offered them an olive branch in the form of the Panama Canal, Nicaragua, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Korea, Yemen, Angola, Kampuchea, and Afghanistan. He was in the process of handing them all of Eastern Europe when he was cruelly tossed out of office by the Moral Majority.
However, Carter's refusal to confront the USSR set the wheels in motion for its eventual collapse. Lured into a false sense of superiority, the Soviets overextended themselves, spreading their influence across the globe in much the same way the Roman Empire did. If allowed to continue on such a course, the Soviet Union would quietly fade away in just a few hundred years. All Reagan did was speed up the process by forcing the "evil empire" into an arms race.
By standing up to the Soviets and forcing them in to an arms race, Reagan brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation. If it weren't for Sting's visionary Russians single soothing the tensions between the two world powers, I would very likely be typing this blog from a fallout shelter today. We owe him, and Jimmy Carter, a deep debt of gratitude.
Kauffner,
You don't really think socialism is a commandment from Jesus or God do you? c'mon, that is a joke, appropriate at this site, I suppose.
I read this stupid analogy all the time. socialism is a FORCED redistribution of wealth, not the charitable contributions given from the heart, which is what Jesus intended, not to 'pay ceasar'. In fact, socialism promotes atheism, to replace God with government.
Socialism does not promote creativity, ingenuity, nor ambition, why should one try to ecel when it's just takem from him? He might as well be a bus driver or dishwasher. I'm sure you'll find the real problem was socialism breeds a bigger class gap between the haves and have nots, and eventually, the have nots get tired of supporting the haves and quit working, or join a rebellion. If I remember the period, what I heard most was about the great poverty and extreme cold. People couldn't afford basic neccessities (which under socialist rule should have been free anyway), so the industries couldn't sustain production. Yea, gotta love a central government system... hail to the national gulag!
Posted by: rollsrac | November 19, 2007 at 08:42 PM
The Soviets lost the cold war - and their empire - when they moved away from the use of terror to subdue their population. It was the accession of Gorbachev that led to the downfall of the USSR - Reagan was pretty much irrelevant. (Remember Daniel Patrick Moynihan predicting in 1980 or so that the Soviet Union would collapse in ten years?)
Let's be thankful that Gorbachev was there in the Reagan years. Can you imagine how Brezhnev would have reacted to Reagan's macho posturing?
Posted by: John Q | February 03, 2008 at 12:24 AM
Thx! :)
Posted by: honda-radio | February 17, 2008 at 08:39 PM
You're all wrong. It was Bush who won the cold war. Not W, mind, H.W. If you read Gates' memoires, you'll see why. I really don't have time to explain it here, but without Bush standing up to the American people, and being really humble, it would have probably ended in all out Nuclear War. I'll give Reagan credit where its due, but it was ultimately George H.W. Bush who put the frozen giant in his grave.
Posted by: Julien Saunders | February 20, 2008 at 03:40 PM
Carter---what a fool. Even M. Begin would not meet with him last time he was in Israel. Supposed to be his friend, Ha!
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Posted by: free psychic predictions | April 02, 2010 at 06:19 AM
Lured into a false sense of superiority, the Soviets overextended themselves, spreading their influence across the globe in much the same way the Roman Empire did. Jesus said that the poor will always be with us.
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