"Lynne V. Cheney
April 1, 2015
If you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!
—President Ronald Reagan, speech at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin, 1987
President Reagan’s challenge to Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev remains one of the most dramatic calls for freedom in our time. Thus I was heartened to find a passage from Reagan’s speech on the sample of the new Advanced Placement U.S. history exam that students will take for the first time in May. It seemed for a moment that students would be encouraged to learn about positive aspects of our past rather than be directed to focus on the negative, as happens all too often.
But when I looked closer to see the purpose for which the quotation was used, I found that it is held up as an example of “increased assertiveness and bellicosity” on the part of the U.S. in the 1980s. That’s the answer to a multiple-choice question about what Reagan’s speech reflects.
No notice is taken of the connection the president made between freedom and human flourishing, no attention to the fact that within 2½ years of the speech, people were chipping off pieces of the Berlin Wall as souvenirs. Instead of acknowledging important ideas and historical context, test makers have reduced President Reagan’s most eloquent moment to warmongering.
The AP U.S. history exam matters. Half a million of the nation’s best and brightest high-school students will take it this year, hoping to use it to earn college credit and to polish their applications to competitive colleges. To score well on the exam, students have to learn what the College Board, a private organization that creates the exam, wants them to know."
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That’s the end of what Lynne V. Chaney had to say. Here is what Fella has to say…
I once read a book about this speech. Most of President Reagan's advisors did their best to get him to not say, "Tear Down This Wall". At that time in history that wall was a fact of life that would be there forever. They said that throwing down this challenge was a waste of time. It was never going to happen and it would make the Soviets mad at us.
Within 2.5 years of the speech the wall came down. Would it have come down without President Reagan daring to say it ought to come down? Maybe it would have but what's wrong with looking at something so evil and saying that it was evil and that evil ought to be removed?
If Fella had been an advisor to President Reagan I hope I would have said to President Reagan, “Hey, Ronnie, it can’t hurt.” History has proven that it did not hurt.
The Fella is glad President Reagan had the guts to say what I would have advised him to say if I had been there to say it.
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
2 comments:
Some of the most memorable, most profound, moments in presidential speeches have been challenges. Challenges that might be seen as unattainable, but that inspired, motivated and set us on a path of working together for a purpose, a vision to reach forward.
Those words should be cherished as jewels, the values of what makes these United States great.
Very good article, Fella. One of your best! Clearly we have a big problem with our educational system. The Leftist somehow always manages to worm their way in to the very basic structure of our society and destroy it with lies and misinformation.... very dangerous situation!
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