Manhattan Paper: Reagan's Moscow Address
The twentieth century has given the word "revolution" a very bad name. It is now commonly associated with violent social upheaval and the spilling of human blood. But a benign revolution has gently rolled upon us in the waning days of the century. It is quiet because it is so decent, and it is so decent because it offers to bring both peace and freedom.
Alvin Toffler called it the "Third Wave," the transformation of advanced societies from industrial economies to information-based civilizations.
The infectious spread of remarkable new modes for moving things and information have given public policy a new global dynamic: People are no longer so easy to hold hostage with bad law. Ideas and humans are becoming ever more mobile, capable of absconding with the economic goods at the hint of an antisocial govern-ment move.
In this hopeful moment, Ronald Reagan leaves the presidency of the most benignly revolutionary nation in history. If a leader's vision can be communicated in just one public statement, the 40th American President would do well to select his speech to the students and faculty of Moscow State University, on May 31, 1988. It conveys an affirmation of the great ideals which motivated the American experiment. But more, it nurtures a hope for a genuinely peaceful tomorrow, based not on poetry, hallucination, or the compromise of those great ideals, but upon the emerging acceptance of the first principles of free people.
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