Re: Beliefs



"flanier" wrote in message news:b5074657-364e-4c88-b9cb-01f1c8ad7f17@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The ongoing discussion here and elsewhere about GW with various
members of the ignoratti (and they know who they are) bring a smile to
this face and kinda reminds one, during the various celebrations of
the 100th anniversary of dear, dear departed Ronny Reagan, of the
myths the knuckledraggers (largely the same group of ignoratti
previously mentioned) like to spout.

Let's review 5 myths about the "great communicator" shall we? The
following taken largely from a recent article by Will Bunch.

1)Reagan was one of the most popular Presidents ever.

Not really true. His average popularity over his eight year term was
~53%. That places the 40th president not just behind Kennedy, Clinton
and Dwight Eisenhower, but also Lyndon Johnson and George H.W.
Bush,neither of whom are talked up as candidates for Mount Rushmore.
In 1982, as the national unemployment rate spiked above 10 percent,
Reagan's approval rating fell to 35 percent. (Consider Obama's rating
with about the same unemployment)

Don't you have to include ALL the Presidents in order to know the right answer?


2)Reagan was a tax cutter.

Not at all true. The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982
was, at the time, the largest peacetime tax increase in U.S. history.
Ultimately, Reagan signed measures that increased federal taxes every
year of his two-
term presidency except the first and the last. These included a higher
gasoline levy, a 1986 tax reform deal that included the largest
corporate tax increase in American history, and a substantial raise in
payroll taxes in 1983 as part of a deal to keep Social Security
solvent. While wealthy Americans benefitted from Reagan's tax
policies, blue-collar Americans paid a higher percentage of their
income in taxes when Reagan left office than when he came in.

The phrase is, he was a "tax cutter". Therefore, ANY President, who cut taxes, is by definition a "tax cutter".


3)Reagan was a hawk.

Uhhhhhhh....maybe. Though Reagan expanded the U.S. military and
launched new weapons programs, his real contributions to the end of
the Cold War were his willingness to negotiate arms reductions with
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and his encouragement of Gorbachev as
a domestic reformer. Indeed, a USA Today poll taken four days after
the fall of the Berlin Wall found that 43 percent of Americans
credited Gorbachev, while only 14 percent cited Reagan. In 1988,
Reagan signed the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which
stated that torture could be used under "no exceptional circumstances,
whatsoever."

Who should make that call, the "people" or the "experts"?

4) Reagan was against ''big gobment"

Well, the stats don't show that. Reagan famously declared at his 1981
inauguration that "in the present crisis, government is not the
solution to our problem; government is the problem." This rhetorical
flourish didn't stop the 40th president from increasing the federal
government's size by every possible measure during his eight years in
office. Federal spending grew by an average of 2.5 percent a year,
adjusted for inflation, the national debt exploded, increasing from
about $700 billion to nearly $3 trillion. The number of federal
employees grew from 2.8 million to 3 million. Reagan also abandoned a
campaign pledge to get rid of two Cabinet agencies - Energy and
Education - and added a new one, Veterans Affairs.

Can you be against "big government" and not reduce the size of government? Unless you are a king, what you want and what you get are two different things aren't they?

5)Reagan was a conservative culture warrior.

Reagan's contributions to the culture wars of the 1980s were largely
rhetorical and symbolic. Although he published a book in 1983 about
his staunch opposition to abortion (overlooking the fact that he had
legalized abortion in California as governor in the late 1960s), he
never sought a constitutional ban on abortion. In fact, Reagan began
the odd practice of speaking to anti-abortion rallies by phone instead
of in person. He also advocated prayer in public schools in speeches,
but never in legislation. In 1981, Reagan unintentionally did more
than any other president to
prevent the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling from being overturned when he
appointed Sandra Day O'Connor to the Supreme Court. O'Connor mostly
upheld abortion rights during her 25 years as a justice.

Can ANY President know in advance what a person who is nominated to the Supreme Court will do, once they become a member of the Supreme Court. Isn't this appointment, basically rolling the dice, because they are not "suppose" to make that selection based on ideology....one of those games that every President, and every member of the Senate plays, when it comes to who is seated on the Supreme Court?

Now some American loons want to name towns after this guy and a German
goofball want to name a platz after this so-called Republican icon! I
think the airport should be renamed to "OMG International"!

Isn't that an American tradition? Are they not someone now trying to name something to honor Obama?




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