Evil Empire Speech: Evil
Evil Empire Speech: Evil
Never fear, Mermaid Man—evil may be afoot, but only to try and inspire you to act against it.
Throughout his speech, Reagan talks about all sorts of evil things, from the Soviet Union and nuclear weapons, to abortion, infanticide, and racism—all of which were alive and well in the United States in the 1980s.
And, sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but a few of those things are still alive and well, even today.
But Reagan spends lots of time talking about evil in an effort to make people angry, maybe a little fearful, not because he enjoys watching people cry and curl into a fetal position, but because acknowledging the presence of something so terrible is the only way to stop it.
That said, Reagan doesn't advocate for the use of bombs or weapons to stop the spread of communism. In fact, he pretty much tells the audience that's not the answer, because an act of evil only perpetuates more evil. The solution is to, essentially, spread the love—or, more accurately, the power of freedom, of liberty, the kinds of things America has been working on perfecting for a couple hundred years.