The Fall of the Berlin Wall

I can remember the fall of the Berlin Wall.  It was an astounding, glorious, and wonderful event  -- the most so of my lifetime.  However, my mindset at the time was that we couldn't give Reagan any credit for this.  I, in my then Leftist mindset, hated to see American triumphalism.

But I was forced to change my mind, by the facts of the matter, that the Americans had every right to crow.  Their creed and ideas had ultimately triumphed.  I thought it was the dawning of a golden age and the end of anti-Americanism.

It was and it wasn't.  Some things have improved since November 9, 1989.  The Internet has made everything I desired in 1989 available from my computer at home.  But I had hoped that the rest of the world would adopt a more conservative and libertarian mindset.  Alas, it hasn't.  The recent election of Obama shows that dark appeal of Socialism still infects many, that the absolute control of all societies of government has been replaced by a seemingly simple and commonsense (but evil) notion that we do need government for many reasons in our life.  In Canada, you will still a great majority of the population for instance saying that their medical system, which is communist central control by any other name, is somehow a better way to look after people than the American.  The recent financial crisis brought on a desire for government to do something.  The global warming scam is making the bureaucratic evil world-wide.  There was 9/11/2001.  Ad nauseum.  Hatreds don't die easily.

I can only conclude, while I am right to be a conservative, that my optimism after '89 was misplaced.  Humans will do the wrong things for the right reasons, and screw themselves in the long run every time.  If this weren't so, humans would never have developed a facility for humour.  Conservatives, says John Derbyshire, must regain their sense of doom.

Bonus:  here is a thoughtful symposium about the fall, as always, from the conservative City Journal site.