Since most public school teachers will do their damnedest to denigrate and disparage the legacy of Ronald Reagan, it is essential that we know how to teach about the President.

1) Teach them what communism was. Yes, what communism was. Teach them that state run economies that control the means of production are inefficient and cannot hope to compete with the economies where the market dictates. Teach them that governments that destroy individual freedom, that deny basic human rights, and oppress their citizens cannot compete with societies whose citizens are limited only by their God given gifts.

2) Teach them what the Cold War was. Teach them that at one time, the Soviet Union had 1000's of nuclear missiles pointed at her, and that at several times, we were close to nuclear annihilation. Teach them that at one time, Soviet communism was spreading around the world, on every populated continent, through the use of arms and force. Teach them that at one time, more people lived under totalitarian governments than free ones.

3) Teach them about the Berlin Wall. It was an example of what the communists built. They built walls to keep people in, to prevent them from streaming out, to seek the simplest of human desires, freedom.

4) Teach them about genocide. Teach them that far more people died under the hammer and sickle than ever died under the swastika. Several million under Lenin, 25-40 (maybe more) under Stalin, 10-20 million under Mao, 2-3 million under Pol Pot, millions in Africa and South America, all killed with direct support from the Soviet Union.

4) Teach them about inflation. At one time, there was double digit inflation, rising prices that far out paced the ability of wages to keep up. Teach them about the fear and trepidation, the sense of despair that millions of American moms and dads felt every week going shopping. Teach them that week after week, month after month,, they paid more and more, and their shopping carts had less and less.

5) Teach them about unemployment. Teach them that we had double digit unemployment, that something called a "misery index" was created to measure to combined unemployment and inflation. Teach them that this condition was not temporary, but the permanent, long-term outlook.

6) Teach them about a weak and impotent America. Teach them that the United States, just 35 years earlier, had mobilised the "arsenal of democracy" and liberated the world, and by the end of the 1970's, our military had ships that couldn't sail, planes that couldn't fly, and troops that were ill-equipped to fight. We were so weak, a bunch of thugs in Iran felt they cold take Americans hostage, take over an embassy which is American property, and flaunt our inability to do anything about it. The felt that way because they could.

7) Teach them about a national sense of malaise and foreboding. Teach them that we were told it was our fault that things were bad, that we demanded too much, that the future was going to be bleak, and we should accept that. Teach them about the shame and humiliation and helplessness that was spreading throughout the nation.

Teach them these things because for the last 25 years, they are as foreign a concept as is lebensraum. (Lebensraum is the idea that Germans need more land in the East, like Poland, Russia, etc. It was quite popular in Germany in 1941.) Teach them these things because they will not know what any of these things are, nor will they understand the evil we faced and the despair that engulfed us. Teach them these things, and when you do, remember, there was one man that believed that all of this was defeatable.

Back then, most considered these conditions as permanent. Today, they have been disposed to the dust bin of history. And one man is responsible for all of this.

That man is the greatest president of the 20th century. That man is Ronald Reagan.