Ronald Reagan – may he rest in peace

I hope you will forgive this sentimental note. I have been greatly saddened by the death of President Reagan and felt the need to commemorate his passing by writing a few lines in his memory. Having grown up in communist Czechoslovakia, I have seen, first hand, the material and, more importantly, spiritual devastation that socialism brings. Generations of people in Eastern Europe were impoverished and their morality and sense of self-worth annihilated by a corrupt, inherently dishonest and tyrannical value system. Thanks to Reagan, people like me were set free at a young age. Untainted by socialism, we were allowed our most basic right – to pursue happiness in a place and manner of our choosing. But, it did not have to happen that way! Were the Soviet bloc allowed to continue in its miserable existence for another two decades, my generation would have morphed into that great-gray mass of people that the historians write off as “lost.” It is not a hyperbole to say that Reagan gave us our freedom and for that I am eternally thankful. May he rest in peace.

Marian L. Tupy, Ph.D., Assistant Director, Project on Global Economic Liberty, Cato Institute, Washington, DC