perfidy

Steve, I'm going to quibble with your statement that Reagan, Thatcher, Roosevelt, and Churchill were superhero defenders of freedom. Emphasis on the hero with Thatcher if you know what I mean. Roosevelt and his administration I'll grant you conditionally, aside from racism in the New Deal, ignoring the Holocaust, denying European Jews access to the United States, Executive Order 9066 that interned Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, etc. But he qualifies as a defender of freedom in that he led the United States through most of the second World War and did a lot to bring down Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. Mistakes were made, but challenges also met. 

I could say much the same about Churchill. His actions while in the Imperial office, unleashing the Black and Tans on Ireland, and in negotiating the 1921 Treaty with Ireland significantly limited the freedom of subject peoples. But for two years, he and Britain stood alone against Germany. Like Roosevelt in the U.S., he led Britain through the second World War and also did a lot to bring down Nazi Germany. 

I'll leave alone the Reagan issue, and will offer to agree to disagree on that score. On Thatcher, however, I will make a few remarks. Thatcher did a great deal to limit the freedom of British workers and engaged in the most brutal campaign against Catholics in the north of Ireland since her Tory predecessor Edward Heath's government sanctioned the Bloody Sunday massacre in Derry. Under Thatcher and her own orders, rather than permitting the Blanketmen to wear their own clothes with prisoner of war status, many of the Blanketmen starved to death. In other words, Thatcher preferred that northern Irish Catholic insurgent prisoners starve rather than allowing them to wear civilian clothes. 

Thatcher refused to negotiate with anyone. She would not negotiate with Irish insurgents, she would not negotiate with striking workers. She responded to strikes by closing factories and collieries, and putting thousands of British workers out on the street. She and her administration virtually liquidated the TUC, the cornerstone of British organized labor. She went to war with Argentina over the Falkland islands, a dagger pointed at the heart of Antarctica, in an archaic colonial war specifically designed to drum up reactionary patriotism. Thus, Thatcher beat up sixth graders as an adult. In the last year of her administration, Thatcher introduced a poll tax. Poll taxes are a tremendous limitation on freedom. 

As to preserving the freedom of America by winning the Cold War, at what point could the Soviets have conquered the United States? The strategy was they nuke us, then we nuke them, and it's all over. Cold War brinksmanship could have gotten us all killed. And I haven't admitted that Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold War. I still adhere to my thesis that the Soviets simply couldn't maintain the House that Stalin built and I'm not convinced that it was because they got into a spending arms race with the U.S. But we've had this discussion before, and it will remain forever unresolved and disagreed upon between you and I. 

That aside, the above League of Superheros members Churchill and Roosevelt did lead the defeat of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and Reagan and Thatcher won the Cold War, according to you, not me, but all of them did a great deal to limit the freedom of their own and subject peoples in various ways.