30 years ago today: https://ricochet.com/437031/30-years-ago-today-tear-wall/
TEAR DOWN THIS WALL!
- Thread starter Marshal Jim Duncan
- Start date
But it was such a "big, beautiful" wall....and walls work.
Note: tongue out and sunglasses smirk emojis reflect that I realize I am making a smarmy, ridiculous, trolling analogy.
Note: tongue out and sunglasses smirk emojis reflect that I realize I am making a smarmy, ridiculous, trolling analogy.
A friendly reminder: the wall in question was designed primarily to keep people in. It was also mostly effective.But it was such a "big, beautiful" wall....and walls work.
A friendly reminder:
Some people just can't help but seriously respond to an admittedly (in advance, I will add) smarmy, ridiculous, trolling comment.
But since you went there.
The wall in question was arguably designed to keep people out of West Berlin and the new wall jokingly referenced is arguably designed to primarily keep people in Mexico. More accurately, walls are barriers specifically designed to keep people on whichever side of the wall they happen to be on when it is built.
That is....if we were having a serious conversation regarding walls.
Which we are not.
At all.
They don't make em like they used to (Presidents, not walls).
The distinction between the two is actually pretty vital to any (semi?) serious conversation about a wall. To not acknowledge that is really pretty silly. Which, I guess you admittedly were being.
Yes, I was admittedly being silly.
Which isn't the same thing as saying I agree with the distinction you are seriously trying to make. Other distinctions between the two walls would also be pretty vital to any serious conversation about a wall and their respective effectiveness.
If I was having a serious conversation about a wall.
Which I am not.
At all.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/06/tear-down-this-wall-30.php
An excerpt from the link:
Most of his senior aides didn’t want him to say it. Indeed, they tried repeatedly to talk him out of it. You’ll embarrass your host, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. You’ll anger and provoke Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom you’ve just started making progress on arms control. You’ll whip up false hope among East Germans—for surely the Berlin Wall isn’t coming down any time soon. Besides, Germans have grown used to the Wall. The ultimate reason: You’ll look naïve and foolish, Mr. President.
“Virtually the entire foreign policy apparatus of the U.S. government,” Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson recalled, tried to stop Ronald Reagan from saying “Tear down this wall,” including Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz and the new national security adviser, General Colin Powell. “Some Reagan advisers,” the New York Times reported without naming names, “wanted an address with less polemics.” The State Department and the National Security Council persisted up to the last minute trying to derail it, including one meeting between Powell and White House communications director Tom Griscom that participants say was “tense and forceful.” Reagan had to intervene against his own advisers. Ken Duberstein, serving then as Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, has offered different accounts of how the conversation went, but the gist of it was like this—Reagan: “I’m the president, right?” Duberstein: “Yes, sir, Mr. President. We’re clear about that.” Reagan: “So I get to decide whether the line about tearing down the wall stays in?” Duberstein: “That’s right, sir. It’s your decision.” Reagan: “Then it stays in.”
BTW, I highly recommend both volumes of the Age of Reagan by Steven Hayward from whence this excerpt comes, although I did enjoy the first volume more.
An excerpt from the link:
Most of his senior aides didn’t want him to say it. Indeed, they tried repeatedly to talk him out of it. You’ll embarrass your host, West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl. You’ll anger and provoke Mikhail Gorbachev, with whom you’ve just started making progress on arms control. You’ll whip up false hope among East Germans—for surely the Berlin Wall isn’t coming down any time soon. Besides, Germans have grown used to the Wall. The ultimate reason: You’ll look naïve and foolish, Mr. President.
“Virtually the entire foreign policy apparatus of the U.S. government,” Reagan speechwriter Peter Robinson recalled, tried to stop Ronald Reagan from saying “Tear down this wall,” including Reagan’s Secretary of State George Shultz and the new national security adviser, General Colin Powell. “Some Reagan advisers,” the New York Times reported without naming names, “wanted an address with less polemics.” The State Department and the National Security Council persisted up to the last minute trying to derail it, including one meeting between Powell and White House communications director Tom Griscom that participants say was “tense and forceful.” Reagan had to intervene against his own advisers. Ken Duberstein, serving then as Reagan’s deputy chief of staff, has offered different accounts of how the conversation went, but the gist of it was like this—Reagan: “I’m the president, right?” Duberstein: “Yes, sir, Mr. President. We’re clear about that.” Reagan: “So I get to decide whether the line about tearing down the wall stays in?” Duberstein: “That’s right, sir. It’s your decision.” Reagan: “Then it stays in.”
BTW, I highly recommend both volumes of the Age of Reagan by Steven Hayward from whence this excerpt comes, although I did enjoy the first volume more.
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