| | Thanks for this refreshing commentary refuting the cliche' favored by both the Left and the Right, that the USSR fell because of US foreign policy. The thumbsucking bawlers on the Left complain bitterly that their utopian schemes--in Russia, Cuba, Nicaragua, Chili, or whereever--fail because of blackhearted and unfair meddling by the US state. The misty-eyed war worshippers on the Right crow endlessly about how the Soviet Union was supposedly brought down by the Reagan defense buildup. They imagine that the Soviet state was exhausted and demoralized by military competition with the supposedly invincible American military machine, so that Soviet planners, normally ten feet tall, were thereby forced to their knees.
The perspectives of big government Leftists and big government Rightists share a similar outlook. In each case, these ideologues believe without understanding that their particular brand of political collectivism and state planning is efficacious and just; if only the political class will impose appropriate coercive measures, then justice will naturally assert itself. The Left believes natural justice requires the imposition of socialism; the Right believes justice requires the imposition of American military hegemony in virtually any foreign theater.
Neither outlook is congruent with individualism--the right to exercise one's mind and abilties in pursuit of one's happiness. Neither outlook is congruent with reason, which is why both Left and Right persist in telling lies, twisting facts, and rewriting history in defense of their particular brand of state power.
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