Credit Where Credit is Due

Must give credit to a blogger for his post that gives well-deserved credit to Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul II.

Which brings me back to my original question. Would the events that transpired in the 1980’s occurred without one or all of the “freedom troika” of Reagan, Thatcher, and John Paul? A determinist would say yes, that the undercurrents of history at work in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union would have caused the fall of communism anyway.

I totally reject that notion. Given the alternatives in the United States (Carter and Mondale) as well as Great Britain (James Callaghan and Neil Kinnock) it seems more likely that Soviet communism would have limped along as it had for more than 60 years at that point, being propped up by western defeatism and myopia. And an Italian Pope as an almost certain alternative to Cardinal Wojtyla would not have had the standing in eastern Europe to affect much change at all.

He refers to it as Taming the Whirlwind of History.

I refer to it as "Surfing the Chaos Wave."

It may be irreverent at this point to make reference to Pope John Paul II as a surfer, but I'll risk it. It took courage to paddle out, turn and raise in the rough waters that he chose to surf. He could have chosen safer waters. To wit: many of the historical failings of the Catholic Church grew from political expedience over moral principle.