I've heard all this before.

See if you can guess what year I'm talking about.

A Republican President that everyone on the Left thinks is stupid and incompetent.

Deep American military involvement in a confrontation with an evil totalitarian ideology.

America seen as a warmonger by the "majority" of people in the world.

The Educated and Wise telling us that we should not antagonize our enemies.

Any guesses?

If you said 2005, you must have read this article in today's Deseret News.

But I was talking about 1985, President Ronald Reagan, the Soviet Union, and the Cold War.

And back then, just as now, there were polls that "showed" the people of Russia and Eastern Europe were afraid of America. There were Pointy Heads from universities and think tanks that told us the Cold War was making things worse for us. And there were strident calls for us to unilaterally disarm so that we wouldn't "antagonize" our enemies.

The liberals never learn. Or give up. For example, a professor who does a poll in the undemocratic countries of the Middle East, and gets a majority who say that Iraq is less democratic than before the US invasion and thinks this is an accurate portrayal of public sentiment, is either completely delusional or blatantly pushing propaganda. I know which answer I'd choose.

I've heard and seen all this before. America is evil, America is a warmonger, America should stay out of the affairs of the world's dictatorships. They said the same things about us 20 years ago, in some cases just weeks before the collapse of the Soviet Union.

And guess what. President Reagan knew the truth. And that Truth set Eastern Europe free.

Just as it will in the Middle East.