20 years ago today the Berlin Wall came down. It downs on me that I’m 37, and so the wall has been down longer than it has been up for me. And yet it seemed like such a permanent fixture in the world, and the most concrete reminder of what communism was, and what separated us from the East.

Today, we still live with the repercussions of communism, but it is not our mortal enemy any longer. Mr. Reagan said “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” Gorbachev didn’t, of course, but he won the Nobel peace prize. Reagan’s efforts, however, are not forgotten in Eastern Europe today.