We Hated Reagan
They now looked upon me as a dangerous heretic, which I certainly was from their point of view, and I considered them a threat to the well-being of everything I now held dear, which they certainly were.
– Norman Podhoretz, Ex-Friends
Ronald Reagan is widely regarded as the greatest American president since Franklin Roosevelt, possibly the greatest of the 20th century, and definitely one of the greatest ever. His centenary this year has elicited a cavalcade of conservative encomia. All try to distill the essence of his leadership and transmit it to a new generation. Rare, however, are those who didn’t much care for him as president but whose opinions and convictions have shifted over time. Their assessments, however, make sense: his presidency created a new voting demographic (“Reagan Democrats”) and, often overlooked, the towering Republican legend had been more than half his life a loyal Democrat. As a youngster in Manhattan in the 1980s, I myself was formed in an intensely Democratic milieu where distrust, resentment, and repulsion underwrote our attitudes toward Reagan. Any honest attempt by any of us to reckon with him must begin by admitting that, at heart, we hated Reagan.
We hated Reagan because he hailed from another country, or another version of this country, a strangely idyllic ranch outside Santa Barbara, California. That place had no place in our parents’ iconic 1970s New Yorker poster — of a commanding but caricatured worldview, looking west from 9th Avenue. Hence it had no place for us. From our cultured, concrete canyons, the Reagan Ranch was and would remain terra incognita.
We hated Reagan because the grown-ups around us snickered at his old-time movie roles in Bedtime for Bonzo and Knute Rockne, All American. That we, at tender ages, were perfectly enamored of The Muppet Movie and E.T. and Rocky and Chariots of Fire bothered no one. We hated Reagan because MAD magazine mocked his interior secretary with the caption “Watt…We Worry!” Because New York Times editorials tended to sublimate MAD’s bias, at age twelve we gladly took out our first Gray Lady subscriptions — to the nodding approval of the grown-ups around us.
We hated Reagan because he was shot just four months after John Lennon had been shot and murdered. Instant karma got Reagan, we quipped mercilessly, and Hinckley was just a patsy. Before, Reagan was aggravating because he reminded us that Red, White, and Blue stood for more than just Beatles albums. Now we hated Reagan because more than ever he competed with “John” for our imagination.
We hated Reagan because our parents went Greyhound to show solidarity with striking air traffic controllers. During our first foray ever into the Deep South, we watched a white driver disembark a black passenger for consuming beer on board. The incident elicited a loud whisper from us about “racist” drivers — a self-righteous gesture on a self-righteous journey that comforted no one (except us). Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in the end, but along the way we hated him because we couldn’t admit that the return leg of every Freedom Ride is a Responsibility Ride.
We hated Reagan because M*A*S*H was cancelled after eleven seasons and over 250 episodes. We wanted war to be over, but not the sitcoms that made light of (our side of) it. Fortunately, we could still watch the show in syndication up to fifteen times per week. Thirty years after a Korean stalemate and eight years after a Vietnamese defeat, we knew more about M*A*S*H than we did about Korea or Vietnam — or about Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, or Afghanistan.
We hated Reagan because one English teacher, a beret-sporting poet, pronounced Chile “CHEE-lay” (which rhymes with its martyred socialist president, Allende). Reference to Allende was license to hate Nixon — but Nixon was before our time, so we hated Reagan instead. We hated Reagan because one of our parents had been mentioned in Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night — and those Yippie antiwar protestors still couldn’t levitate the Pentagon. We hated Reagan because J. D. Salinger’s Nine Stories was even better than The Catcher in the Rye — and Reagan had no use for either. We hated Reagan because we trudged over an hour through muggy subways and soggy streets to hear Allen Ginsberg recite his poetry — and the Beat bard read only new stuff. We hated Reagan because in his speeches the former Sunday school teacher was neither afraid nor ashamed to invoke God — while our parents’ only mentions of Him were remotely memorized Bible verses mouthed in erudite defiance or vague chagrin.
Oh yes. I remember how deeply I hated Reagan. I voted for Carter that year I came of age. And yes, I marched with the Nuclear Freeze crowd. No MX missle. No B-1 bomber (or was it B-2). And yes, I read “Revolution for the Hell of It” by Abbe Hoffman. And Yes, “Nine Stories” was even better than “Catcher”, especially “A Perfect Day for Bananafish”… We KNEW what was good and right and best. Damn that Ronald Reagan. Simpleton… Bumpkin…
…And the greatest president of my lifetime. God bless you, Ronnie. Forgive my stupid ignorance and arrogance.
I remember the protests and the clamor and I seem to remember it was the B-1 bomber…. the low-level strategic bomber with folding wings.
The initial B-1A version was developed in the early 1970s, but its production was canceled Jimmy Feckless Peanut Farmer from Georgia and only four prototypes were built. As part of the Reagan defense build-up to counter the Russian Bear, ithe B-1 resurfaced as the B-1B version with the focus on low-level penetration bombing. The B-1B entered service during Reagan’s second term as part of the USAF Strategic Air Command as a nuclear bomber. This new strategic bomber complimented the Reagan modernization of the nuclear triad, including missiles and submarines. In the 1990s, the B-1B was converted to conventional bombing use. It was first used in combat during Operation Desert Fox in 1998 and during the NATO action in Kosovo the following year.
A brilliant and important recollection. Thank you.
Well the Drug War has worked really well. If killing Mexicans was our objective. So you have got to give him that. Of course the Taliban has profited from Prohibition. No way to see that coming. And let us not forget that at the Federal level drug enforcement has gone from $100 million a year to $25 billion a year. No way to see that coming. And the inflation/purity adjusted price of heroin has dropped by a factor of 6X. No way to see that coming.
It is fortunate Reagan didn’t live through alcohol prohibition or he might have seen all that that coming.
Couldn’t muster up the gumption to just say no to drugs, could you?
Evidently you are unaware of America’s history with Alcohol Prohibition. You have to wonder why Americans didn’t say no to alcohol? Don’t Americans believe in obeying the law?
BTW although I personally say no to drugs, I think it is way more important to say no to stupidity. But hey. When they flash bang you at 3 AM for a student loan problem or some such you can thank your support of the drug war for setting the precedent. After all you might be armed. Can’t have that.
I think prohibition has its own “narrative”. There were in fact some positive results, possibly some even after it was repealed. There was a reason that prohibition was a feminist issue. But, at the end, alcohol is a food, and it has been ingrained in most cultures for thousands of years. A bit of an exception, I think.
Yes, there’s always an excuse to avoid logic. In twenty years, someone will be saying the same thing about the end of marijuana prohibition.
So let’s ignore the evidence that Prohibition was actually successful prior to its repeal, and that the efforts to portray it as otherwise were an early example of media spin by those with a vested interest in opposing it? Got it!
…and you hate Reagan so much that you seem to forget that Nixon initiated “The War on Drugs” and that other presidents including the current one executed it with far more fervor.
M. Simon is a perfect example of someone who should have just said, “No.”
I also grew up in manhattan. I voted (reluctantly) for Carter in ’80 but (enthusiastically) for Reagan in ’84. It was easy to see by then that the objections to him were either dishonest or just plain wrong. (Or both.) I have only voted dem once since then (in 1992).
I staunchly defended the MX missile: replacing large, city-destroying warheads with a much smaller number of relatively tiny, precisely targeted, weapons-destroying warheads strongly appealed to me. (And to Carter, BTW, who actually was father of the MX program.) Same logic for the Euromissile replacement.
And I really never did get what was so darn “unliberal” about opposing mass-murdering, freedom-destroying, soul-eating communists. BTW, my mother was an ex-communist agent — who wound up voting for Reagan in ’84 and Papa Bee in ’88.
The second-worst thing that ever happened to the (20th-Century) dems was the HHH-Gene McCarthy split. (The worst thing was that happened to them was that the Gene McCarthy wing won.)
This isn’t my story! My PARENTS campaigned for Carter, but I voted for Reagan both times.
Sometimes the apple falls far from the tree.
I campaigned at age 19 for Reagan in 1950, but my mother (single parent family) was and is a Democrat. Funny thing, I was one of the few in my high school to have wanted Carter in 76 and in grade school the one black kid and I wanted McGovern. I changed as I went through high school and saw that liberalism wasn’t about the truth nor was it about ensuring liberty and prosperity for all.
Oh yes, please forgive my ignorance in childhood for thinking the Democrats were the good guys.
I think you meant 1980 in the above?
“Ronald Reagan is widely regarded as the greatest American president since Franklin Roosevelt, possibly the greatest of the 20th century, and definitely one of the greatest ever.”
Amen. Enough said.
Unfortunately, Franklin Roosevelt was the worst and most destructive President of the 20th Century.
Sorry, but FDR takes a backseat to Wilson when it comes to being the worst. Corporation laws, 16th & 17th Amendments, WWI, and the Depression of 1920, when 38% of our national wealth was destroyed.
Reagan was not the greatest of the 20th century. He takes a backseat to Calvin “Silent Cal” Coolidge, in my estimation.
I completely agree regard Coolidge – he is exactly what I want in a President.
Wilson was aweful and it took a long time to fix his screw-ups (bad economy, bad treaties, racial segregation). We still haven’t fix FDR’s messes – disregard for the Constitution, Social Security, Kenysian spending as the economic cure-all, etc…
They both stuck.
And the very first change Reagan made to the White House upon his arrival was to have the famous painting of Silent Cal put in the most prominent spot in the Oval Office.
We are not the only ones who loved Coolidge and wanted his style of leadership in the White House.
Ronnie did as well.
If you are interested, there is a short biography of Coolidge at Chicago Boyz.
I have only one small disagreement with you. Coolidge followed Harding’s policies through his entire presidency. Coolidge is only the second most underappreciated president. Harding had his personal issues (His mistress and their child were at the 1920 GOP convention with him) but his policies ended the 1919-1920 depression in months.
One of the many things I loved about Ronald Reagan was the hatred he inspired in all the right people – and his total disregard for their hatred.
First: I agree completely with you here and above. Second: it was this total disregard for their hatred that drove them to even greater paroxysms of rage. He refused to hate back. He called the Soviet empire evil without an ounce of hatred: and then invited them to change for the better. It reminds me of a neighbors dog – a German Shepherd we nicknamed “Kid” – that used to come over to our house when I was a kid. It was the happiest and friendliest dog I have ever known. And it drove our own poor little cocker spaniel into fits of rage. Which fits Kid utterly ignored. It was as if our dog was not even there. It was hilarious to watch her try to drive Kid off without even being able to elicit a response!
This article was so hard for me to read. In the end, it said it was ignorance. No. What I read was insanity.
When I see this stuff, my mind starts to feel the insanity; It starts to make me dizzy. It is why I cannot abide Leftist blogs. I try to read them, but just get nauseous from the hate and insanity on display. I simply do not have the stomach for such evil.
I think the word you’re looking for is arrogance. That kind of hatred doesn’t stem from ignorance, and while it has the outward appearance of insanity, it’s really a type of moral/intellectual vanity. Mere ignorance doesn’t have that strong an appeal.
I think ignorance alone is not enough, but combine implacable ignorance with invincible arrogance, and you’ve got the kind of closed-minded bigot that is your garden-variety leftist. It is the ignorance, however, that makes it seem insane, because the inability to learn anything new means beating the same dead horse until its bones are powder while wondering why it won’t get up and run.
“the inability to learn anything new means beating the same dead horse until its bones are powder while wondering why it won’t get up and run.”
That is a great line and describes perfectly the left’s penchant for trying to impose government run economies and businesses when over and over this approach has failed and ended in poverty and tyranny.
Perhaps it is the poverty and tyranny which they want. Consider that the entire premise of liberalism/socialism/communism is that the helpless poor must be protected from the evil capitalists and from themselves by the all-caring, all-knowing socialist intellectual. With that construct in mind, the more helpless poor, and the more power for the intellectual, the better.
It’s more than ignorance. It is in depth rationalization of what they want to be true. Get in an argument with them, and you will trigger an avalanche of citations to worthless studies of predetermined outcome, rigged polls, and cherry picked data, all geared toward convincing you, and themselves, that they have a lock on the TRUTH.
As RR himself, borrowing from Samuel Clemens, was wont to say:
To whom is this “we” you refer to? Did you have a mouse in your pocket while writing this article? The only people that hated Ronald Reagan were those that have always and will always cause problems. The group of humanity I’m referring to are those that follow. People that think independently loved Ronald Reagan. He won a historic landslide in 1984. As a young man I celebrated America’s awakening. Then in 1992 many of those same people elected Clinton. GHW Bush wasn’t Reagan even though many hoped he would continue his policies. But rather than having 50% of Reagan they elected Clinton. I then came to the conclusion that most people are simply sheepish and jumped on the Reagan bandwagon. They are why societies fail and democracy is fundamentally flawed. FDR was a lousy President bailed out by WW2.
Must be nice to have all the answers.
I didn’t grow up hating Reagan either. The author doesn’t speak for me. Wish he’d confined his remarks to himself. But maybe it was just an illustration of groupthink.
At first, I began to get that vibe too, but reading the entire column dispelled that notion. I believe, and please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong (I doubt it), that the author is simply summing up the Leftist arguments (and perhaps some of his own) misgivings about RR and how like sheep so many uninformed Americans jumped on the anti-Reagan bandwagon – until 1984.
The proof is in the pudding, not the pudding-heads currently seeking to replace Ronaldus Magnus.
~(Ä)~
Death From Above
This survey of the debris fields of Liberal America is well worthwhile as we contemplate how we are going to clean up and rebuild America after a hundred years of destruction. As one of the comments to the article remarked it must be nice to have all of the answers. The problem is of people who aren’t willing to be human or vote for humans. We have to trust Ron Paul and Herman Cain and Sarah Palin and vote for people like them who are close to the center and stay away from failed Governors from the far left fringe like Mitt Romney. Would any of us want to live in Massachusetts now after Mitt Romney was Governor?
I hope everyone noticed how the hatred of Reagan was woven in and supported by the publications of the Established Press. America’s Constitution was lost to the evil of the Press Barons late in the nineteenth Century.
If we are ever going to have a free country again, and I hope we can without nukes, we are going to have to make the Democrats fix the elections in public out in the open where everyone can see them doing it. In New York, N.Y. Bridgeport, CT Chicago, IL and a dozen other cities they will keep doing it but in most states there will not be the big city newspapers that were the heart of corruption and whose existence made it all possible and it will fail in this the Internet age.
This survey of the debris fields of Liberal America is well worthwhile as we contemplate how we are going to clean up and rebuild America after a hundred years of destruction. As one of the comments to the article remarked it must be nice to have all of the answers. The problem is of people who aren’t willing to be human or vote for humans. We have to trust Ron Paul and Herman Cain and Sarah Palin and vote for people like them who are close to the center and stay away from failed Governors from the far left fringe like Mitt Romney. Would any of us want to live in Massachusetts now after Mitt Romney was Governor?
I hope everyone noticed how the hatred of Reagan was woven in and supported by the publications of the Established Press. America’s Constitution was lost to the evil of the Press Barons late in the nineteenth Century.
If we are ever going to have a free country again, and I hope we can without nukes, we are going to have to make the Democrats fix the elections in public out in the open where everyone can see them doing it. In New York, N.Y. Bridgeport, CT Chicago, IL and a dozen other cities they will keep doing it but in most states there will not be the big city newspapers that were the heart of corruption and whose existence made it all possible and it will fail in this the Internet age.
you might be intelligent, but you are unwise
The author is clearly not talking about everyone. It’s right there in the opening premise. People who hated Reagan but came around later.
He doesn’t speak for me either. I loved Reagan. The first president I ever voted for. But that doesn’t mean the author’s experience didn’t exist. We all knew people like that. I wish more of them would come around.
Clinton won his first term only because A) George H.W. Bush broke his promise not to raise taxes, thus losing all credibility and B) because of that many of us decided Perot would be a better choice. Others, I’m sure, simply sat it out. And, no, I’m not sorry I voted for Perot, Clinton victory notwithstanding. I hope the GOP establishment gets it this time, but I doubt they will. Many conservatives like myself will not tolerate a middling candidate no matter what. No matter what I WILL NOT vote for Mitt Romney. Period. And I believe there are many others like myself.
He isn’t referring to “us”. He is referring to all of the leftists who are now inventing a past.
The disgusting, hateful, reaction of my school mates to the attempted assassination of Reagan caused me to question my liberal assumptions and turned me around from the ignorant democrat I was, to the life long republican that I became. I hope I would have figured it out anyway, but I’m grateful it happened early in my life.
My first vote in a Presidential election was as a cadet at West Point in 1984. In 1980, I was living in Canada, and remembered waiting 3 months for an operation to take a cyst out of my wrist. For 3 months, I waited in pain for an outpatient operation that only took for hours. That is socialized medicine. In 1981, when moving back home to the USA, my family sang the national anthem and we cried tears of joy as we crossed the bridge in Detroit.
I have never once voted for a Democrat. But in two Presidential Elections, I refused to cast my vote for the Republican nominee – in 1996 and 2008. While I could not vote for either Clinton or Obama, I absolutely refused to lend my support to Dole or McCain. It was a non-vote of principle.
That should be a warning to the Republican party that failing to put forward a genuine choice for President will lose the support of those who cherish Reagan’s philosophy and governing ideal. Someone who bragged about passing universal health care in his state, such as Mitt Romney, can never get my support. If the Republican party is so foolish as to nominate him, there are many Reagan voters who will stay home once again.
It is still a mystery to me why Mitt Romney of colossal RINO qualifications, a one-time bad governor of Massachusetts who left a legacy of taxes, debt, and bureaucracy in the kingdom of taxes, debt, and bureaucracy. Why in the whole world is any Republican following him because he is “an accomplished businessman” (?) It sounds to me so similar to the already heard “he is so articulate” (demospeak for “he does not talk like a negro.”)
Why, my fellow Republicans, why do you always do that?
If that clown is nominated I am catching the last fight to Uruguay and watch the flames from afar.
In my case, it’ll be Chile.
“Catino
It is still a mystery to me why Mitt Romney of colossal RINO qualifications, a one-time bad governor of Massachusetts who left a legacy of taxes, debt, and bureaucracy in the kingdom of taxes, debt, and bureaucracy. Why in the whole world is any Republican following him because he is “an accomplished businessman” (?) It sounds to me so similar to the already heard “he is so articulate” (demospeak for “he does not talk like a negro.”)
Are republicans following him – or is it a case of the LSM constantly telling us we’re following him. Is he the “frontrunner” or is it that the media is constantly promoting him as the “frontrunner”? I don’t like or trust the media, which means I also don’t like or trust any “unbiased information” they give out.
Romney is an entitlement pimp like Karl Rove. But an Obama second term is not like a Clinton.
Enough people like you out there and we’re guaranteed another four years of Obama. ANY Republican, or RINO, is better than Obama. God help us if we forget that.
Well, then, the folks voting Republican better remember that. I will not vote for Romney. I. Will. Not. A nomination of Romney is many, many, many votes for Obama. In fact, I may spit in your eye and vote for Obama and hasten the end. That means not just a lost vote, but potentially a vote for the other guy.
I hope you get this. Do NOT nominate this guy. Don’t do it. I’d even vote for Ron Paul, if he’s the nominee, as loony as he is. ANYONE else running is acceptable.
Why? Because we would still be heading the same direction off the cliff, but there would be no chance of arresting it. The Repubs would get the blame, and we would see it used as justification of putting in their societal transformation. Romney would be the worst possible result. Not Obama. Romney.
I certainly agree with your sentiments, and those of earlier post above.
You’re wrong in one respect, however.
We’re already off the cliff and plummeting down.
I quite agree with you, Marc. This Mormon wishes Duncan Hunter had caught fire. I had a very hard time voting for McCain, for the same reasons you state. Romney is a crony capitalist. He is a HUGE tax raiser. He is a big-time big government interventionist, control freak.
He is the polar opposite of what we need. I quite understand our need to get back to personal morality and responsibility–it’s the moral decay that is at the root of our economic difficulties. It’s not too hard to see that if you’ve the stomach to look, but you have to shed your political correctness first.
Even so, if Chris Christie runs, despite his glaring deficiencies I will vote for him. If Michele Bachmann continues on her present trajectory I will vote for her. If, if, if. There are so many alternatives to Mitt Romney out there. Here’s a good idea. Tell all your GOP friends Mitt doesn’t stand a chance.
Get that idea circulating well and constantly throughout common GOP circles, and it will become the conventional wisdom–and his numbers will slip as his rivals gain traction.
We cannot afford another John McShame, RINO Repuglican. It’s time for the Tea Party to walk right up to the RINO GOP leadership, punch them dead in the nose, and say, “the days of you picking our nominee are over. This ain’t 2008, and 2008 will never happen again.”
Then maybe if Romney was patriotic enough, he’d understand taht his candidacy is the thing most likely to give America ’4 more years’ of barry O… and quit.
But I think he’s going to stroke his ego instead.
If the wrong Republican gets nominated, I hope there aren’t too many of you persnickety people, because I think re-electing Obama would be far far worse.
Not to worry. Nothing focuses attention and common purpose like fear and the TEA Party fears Obama.The three legs of the Republican party (economic freedom advocates, national defense advocates and traditional values advocates) will settle for someone with two out of these three aspects over someone with zero like Obama. There will be much denunciation during the primary but come November of 2012 even a moderate candidate for president will do because the Republicans in Congress will reflect the TEA Party values even more than now after a major pick up of Senate seats.
Glenn Reynolds coined the “syphilitic camel rule”: he’d vote for any GOP nominee over 0bama (even Huckabee!) because he’d vote for a syphilitic camel over 0bama. But if the nominee were Huckabee (or presumably Romney), he’d try to talk the camel into running one more time.
Vote Siffy the Camel! As competent as 0bama and a lot less dangerous!
Relax everybody. Sarah is coming
My memory of the Reagan years is a little different than most Reagan’s yuppies.
Please feel free to search the web about the points I bring up to fill in the details and decide for yourselves.
First when running against Carter there were rumors of deals by the Reagan team being made with Iran who were holding U.S. citizens hostage.
Iran hostage situation was killing Carter and was a major factor in causing him to lose the election. One book that goes into this conspiracy is “October Surprise” by Gary Sick. What was a political campaign team doing negotiating with other country? I thought that was the state department’s job?
Americans were pissed or at least Lillian Carter and I was and wanted some pay back against Iran. President Reagan did nothing to punish Iran despise his tough talk. This is where Iran figured out that America was a paper tiger. In fact Iran has been in a undeclared war with the U.S. since the Iran hostage crisis and all presidents since Carter have done nothing about it.
In 1983 the U.S. embassy in Beirut was struck by a truck bomb killing Americans. This was to later linked to Iran. However at the time the Reagan administration talked tough about tracking down who did it and making them pay. But no action was ever taken. For more details see Robert Baer’s book “See no Evil”. Later on in 1983 the Reagan’s administration got the bright idea to send some Marines on a peace keeping mission to the Lebanese Civil War. In the middle of a war zone Reagan’s rules of engagement dictated marines carried unloaded weapons. In 1984 the CIA station chief in Beirut was William Casey he was kidnapped by Hezbollah a front group for Iran. Hezbollah at that time was kidnapping people including Americans and the Casey case is the one I remembered best. Casey was tortured and killed in Iran. Again no pay back.
It was around this time the Iran Contra affair began. This affair was Reagan administration’s idea to get Iran to release American hostages and provide weapons to the Nicaragua’s Contras. Again rumors were abound about deals being made.
The facts about a B grade California cowboy.
Ronald Reagan had one enemy in mind during his preseidency and that was the USSR. PERIOD!
As for Iran – he sank their navy – which is why to this day the only thing they have to harrass our ships is speed boats and dingys.
exactly, i love how people try to pile on reagan as he simultaneously toppled the soviet regime without firing a shot AND pulled the economy out of the doldrums
iran contra? You cannot be serious!
what about our current policy of funding hamas/hezbollah and giving billions of dollars to countries which despise america?
what about the holder strategy to give guns to the cartels in an attempt to, ultimately, get rid of the 2nd amendment?
what about the national security failures resulting from obama’s economic destruction and the borrowing of hundreds of billions from our chief rival to fund even more impotency?
ugggh- i need some pepto
I think he grounded their Air Force, too.
F-4′s and 14′s love them some spare parts. All without firing a shot.
I believe you are referring to William Buckley, the CIA’s station chief in Beirut, who was indeed kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Hezbollah. William Colby was the director of the CIA at that time.
Amazing how all of the points you bring up, you couch them with the phrase….
“rumors abound…”
What. Not so sure of your points?
Jeff, you remembered “Iran-Contra.” Good boy. Now that you got it out of your system, take a look at what the Liberals are doing to our country and tell me again how awful Reagan was. Yeah, I thought so.
A leader like Reagan only comes around rarely and, in Reagan’s case, at exactly the right moment in history. He had eight years to turn around a sick country in which Liberals and labor unions had a post-Watergate surge and we all saw what those morons did (um, exactly what the Liberals and labor unions are doing now, in 2011). Reagan was reviled by the Left, and for good reason: he exposed them for what they are: Big Government, anti-business, socialist, nanny-staters who have been trying to drag down the United States since the ’60′s. Reagan, who was once a Democrat, lived through the most tumultuous period as governed it’s most populous state, California. In the end, Jeff, we should acknowledge that despite “Iran-Contra,” Reagan was right about communism, right about the moral and leadership role of the United States, right to fire the air traffic controllers and right about Liberals in general. He was a true leader in every way and, boy, doi I miss him.
Now, stick that in your Che Guverra beret and smoke it.
Thanks for proving the points that Jeremiah Duboff made in his excellent piece, Jeff! I think Bill said everything that I wanted to say in response, so I’ll just say “Amen, Bill!”
All true. Did Reagan screw up? Of course he did. Where there things he could have done differently, better? Of course there were.
If your yardstick is perfection, *no one* will measure up. All things considered, Reagan did quite a good job indeed.
I respect Reagan but some of the Reagan-worship I hear is flat out annoying. His response to the Marine barracks bombing was not falling short of perfection as everyone does; it was a HUGE mistake. Hezbollah killed 241 marines. He should have wiped them off the face of the earth. PERIOD.
@ Jeff: You are certain that ‘payback’ was not done? There many actions in the “shadow wars” that we will never be privy to. As to not attacking Iran, our promery objective was the release of the hostages; this occurred on the morning of Reagans’ inauguration. The US. Embassy was not allowed to repel intruders by order of then Pres. Carter. A decision that resulted in the hostage crisis. Going further, although a state of war existed (and still does) between the US. and Iran, armed conflict with Iran was not in the cards; the military having been hollowed out under the farmer. Also war with Iran at that time would have drawn in Soviet Russia; either as a direct combatant or as an ally in suport of Iran. Choose to do battle at a time and place of your choosing. not your enemies.
Anyone who will quote the appropriately-named Gary Sick had nothing of value to say. Reagan’s election scared the Iranians, just as Lincoln’s scared the South – but with better results.
I take it you don’t remeber when Speaker Wright of the House was conducting his own foreign policy in oppostion to Reagan?
What a crock.
Reagan was cool. Only the morons hated him. Most morons are liberals.
Almost every foreign policy gambit Reagan had the Soviet Union in mind. It seems too easy to forget just how hot the cold war was in the 80′s, and how too many saw stalemate and status quo as the norm and the future. The left were incredulous when the USSR collapsed. They had to move on to Global warming religion to continue their mission….. to knock down and de-throne the USA. To them, we’re no better than any other country, in fact we’re worse in many respects… just ask them
curious
reagan’s decisions were based on weakening our enemies
obama’s decisions are based on weakening our citizens
Reagan backed Israel and stood up to the Muslims in Iran.
Obama, traitor that he is, sells out our allies and supports the enemy Islamic agenda everywhere.
Reagan believed in you as does Cain, Palin or Bachmann.
Right to life.
Right to work.
Private property.
..and yes if you don’t start taking drugs you wont have a drug problem.
Hate the War on Drugs. It’s the smokescreen behind which the statists are chipping away at our Constitutional rights. I don’t think it’s the business of the government to save adults from the rewards of their own stupidity. That’s nanny statism.
Drugs don’t cause drug problems. Things like PTSD cause drug problems. Mostly child abuse in America.
PTSD and the Endocannabinoid System
Female heroin users are at lest 70% abused children who have grown up enough to seek relief.
Heroin
I liked Ronald Reagan, but, he’s overrated as a president. He was good, not great.
Roosevelt?
Hands down the worst president in United States history.
Not even Woodrow Wilson can rival Roosevelt…and, that’s saying something.
i tend to agree with your grading scale
i believe we have only had a few “great” presidents with g washington being #1
we have had several “good presidents”
many mediocre presidents (which isn’t “bad” in the sense their impact didn’t ruin the country)
and several poor presidents
Sorry, can’t agree with your scale. Regan ended the most evil empire the world has ever seen, after all previous 6 presidents did nothing. In my book, that qualifies as greatness.
I’m just glad someone remembered Washington. Without him we might be a monarchy. He will always be #1.
agreed. Reagan was good not great. but compared to Carter, the clown obama and even the Bush’s he is SUPER GREAT.
No, we hate Reagan because his drastic tax reduction resulted in deterioration of the US infrastructure due to lack of funds, began the out-sourcing of American jobs, and heralded the decline of the middle class.
How wrong you are!
The outsourcing of American jobs began AFTER Reagan, in the GHWB administration when so many h-1b visas were issued, and in the Clinton years, when tax rates went back UP and more and more regulations were imposed. It’s the environmentalists and the other regulators and the tax-and-spenders who are driving jobs overseas. Employers go where the taxes are LOWEST.
Err.. think again. http://blogs.forbes.com/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures/
Well that’s just silly revisionism. Reagan cut taxes and within a couple years tax evenues skyrocketed. The tragedy is that both houses of congress were in Democrat hands during his terms. That required him to compromise on domestic spending to get what was needed to end the Soviet Union.
Now we know that domestic enemies are far more dangerous than foreign. They now live in Washington.
Yea! my grandad had a job making tin lithograph toys,Reagan shipped all those jobs to Japan.
Ronald Reagan did not reduce taxes: he reduced tax rates. Tax revenues to the government increased, because economic prosperity is not a zero sum game – everyone (including the middle class) was better off. Reagan was elected and reelected by the middle class: Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
Reagan’s only control over spending was to veto legislation from the Congress. Any “degeneration of the infrastructure” due to lack of spending would be more appropriately laid at the doorstep of Tip O’Neill.
“Reagan’s only control over spending was to veto legislation from the Congress.”
Another ‘inconvenient’ truth the progressives seem not to recall. Among the many other ‘inconvenient’ truths the same morons fail to remember about Reagan. If only Reagan had had just one leg of congress – he could have done so much more.
I worked for RWR and am proud to say that getting him elected is one of the greatest things I/we ever did for our country. As far as I am concerned, if you opposed Reagan, you permanently disqualified yourself from ever claiming to have an intelligent opinion in any political discourse.
Sadly, there are two others, SINCE then, who would have made great Presidents, and would have rescued the nation. Neither will ever occupy the White House, and we will all suffer because of it. Those two: Fred Thompson and Mitch Daniels.
If there is anything we should learn from the Reagan experience, it is that truly capable leaders don’t come around very often. And when they do, we must pull out all of the stops to get them where we need them. When someone like Obama can become President, it shows that we have lost all control of the political process. Integrity means nothing anymore.
I was glad when Reagan won in 1980, Carter was weak… I was to young to vote at the time but I remember all the lefties in Massachusetts (where I grew up) telling me that if Reagan won we would have a nuclear war.
They were wrong and I haven’t trusted them since.
“No, we hate Reagan because his drastic tax reduction resulted in deterioration of the US infrastructure due to lack of funds, began the out-sourcing of American jobs, and heralded the decline of the middle class.”
Every single word of that is a total lie. There isn’t even a smidge of truth in that hogwash.
You can tell who wrote it, just by the lie level.
A left wing Democrat type. Only lefties can lie like that.
I was in high school when Reagan was elected so I did not pay much attention to politics, but as I got older, I listened to many of his speeches. They were grown-up, motivating, inspiring and full of pride for his country. Contrast to the speeches given by Barak Obama today. Embarrasing, juvenile, arrogant and sickening drivel.
I didn’t hate him in totality. He did many more good things than bad but his puritanism really burned me up. Specifically, raising the drinking age. His dad was an alcoholic. Sorry. Mine was not nor was I.
When he came into office, in ’80, there was no enforcement of the drunk driving laws already on the books. Those laws could have been enforced. Instead, he forced through the use of highway funding, the mandatory 21 drinking age down everyone’s throats. That is anti-freedom. Also, he talked up and down about freedom in Poland, with Lech Walesa’s people, but fired the air traffic controllers for their attempt at justice. Their rules stated that they could be forced off the job for any one of a myriad of abnormal vital signs during a physical, just like an airline pilot. They wanted that redressed. They had stressful jobs and many were being forced off before they were eligible for pension or disability benefits, and he canned ‘em like they were a bunch of thieves.
Finally, my class mate, Burt Corcoran, was killed in Beirut. He was a Marine. For all his talk about peace through strength, he did nothing to avenge the Marines who were killed. Russia was not going to fight us in Beirut. He could have avenged their deaths, but he did nothing.
In the end, I felt that in many areas, he just blew a lot of hot air, and in many other areas, he was just part of a group that hated the fact that my peers and I enjoyed legally drinking beer.
Yes, he dealt correctly with the USSR, and for that he was great and he also brought back our pride as a nation. But no man’s legacy is perfect and I feel that I have pointed out a few of his shortcomings, which, if any of you have to sneak alcohol, you now know why.
He stopped the Soviet Union from enslaving the world and you begrudge that he raised the drinking age? How about some perspective?
Also, Congress passed that law after MADD lobied for it. How would you like to have him opposed grieving Mothers?
You tell ‘im, Alex.
The first step on the road to fanaticism is giving up all sense of proportion. That classic New Yorker cover illustrating how out of all proportion the views of Rick NYS types are should serve as a warning.
Interesting! I was a young adult in 1980 but had grown up with many of the same prejudices and arrogant attitudes Duboff discusses. I went to a public high school on Staten Island, which in my day was saturated with Goldwaterites. Dumb! Dumb! They didn’t read poetry.They didn’t grow up with classical music. They didn’t go to museums. How could they possibly know anything? As for those guys “stuck in Vietnam” – they were dumb too! If they weren’t, they could have been in college and avoided the war like literally everyone I knew. I never met a Vietnam vet until I left the East Coast, and I never, never had a conversation with a Republican until I was 27 years old and living in Los Angeles.
That didn’t prevent me from hating Reagan, however. How could anybody vote for that old (my father’s age!), washed-up, has-been B actor and his troglodyte platform?What was wrong with this country?? It wasn’t until the day when, out hiking with my boyfriend in the local mountains, he jokingly suggested it would be fun to run into “Ron and Nancy Reagan,” as he called them (what, no expletives?), who would share their granola with us while Reagan spoke admiringly of our country’s natural wonders… it was a funny idea, and it made me think for the first time, “Hey, those two are human beings, and this boyfriend of mine is more open-minded than I am.”
Reader, I married him. And we’re still married. But it still took 9/11 to really rip the fabric of my Democratitude to shreds. I registered as a Republican in 2003, and have spent eight years atoning for my prior sins. Unfortunately,like Duboff, I failed to appreciate the Gipper when he was alive.
Not all of us hated Reagan. I appreciated Mr. Reagan when he was alive. So when I wept at his death, I was fully aware of what I was weeping over.
The different perspectives are interesting. I was a hard core Reaganite in the 80s and I was only 10 – 18. My parents even have a picture of me standing next to a Reagan cut out when I was 16. We were blessed to have such an incredible man be our President.
I was 24 and the only member of my family to vote for Ronald Reagan, The Great. My youthful blinders fell away fast. Most of the others are still traitorous communists after all these years.
I went into the military when I was 18. I had always planned to. My family dispersed soon after I did, since I was the glue holding it together. So, I had no home address. The Army was my home. I had no Congressman, no State, no Senator. So, the only person I voted for in 1980 was Reagan.
I got a few other 18-yr-olds to vote, too. Being in the Army, I could not campaign for him, not even to my fellow soldiers, but I could convince some to apply for absentee ballots.
I did not know a single soldier who thought well of Carter. That probably had something to do with the miserable pay structure, and the mothballing of units and equipment, and our embassy being occupied and its staff held hostage. We were just itching to go there and kill some ragheads. We hated those guys. I hated serving Carter. I knew lots of ‘Nam vets in those days. They felt the same way.
I shed a single tear when Reagan died.
I’m an old fart, so those who lived through the 50′s will recall the horror of the Hungarian Revolution in 1956. The Russians slaughtered the essentially unarmed Hungarians with tank and machine gun fire and quelled for 35 years the quest for freedom. The Hungarians fought back with bravery and Molotov cocktails but to no avail. They did the same thing in Prague in 1968 during the Prague Spring. If for no other reason, Reagan’s standing up to the Russian Bear and staring it down qualifies him for sainthood in the Political Heavens.
Jeremiah, this was a most excellent post and worthy of a Prize. Thanks for bringing all back to the forefront of my mind. The contrast between Mr. Reagan and Mr. Obama couldn’t be starker. We are still the “Shining City On The Hill,” but a bit of tarnish has accumulated in the last two and a half years.
I rember Ronnie. I was only a wee lad while he was president. But I was old enough to remember the viceral hatred. I would listen to Ron say something that made sense (to me), then one of my friends parents go completly nuts and spout something that I knew was wrong. Not even morally wrong, but factually incorrect.
Never the less ‘Joes’ mom and dad would go off the deep end.Example:
Ron: 2+2=4
Joes parents: WWWAAAAAHHHHHHHHRRRGHGHGHGHGHG EVIL MONSTER!!! 2+2=TURNIP! ARRRGGGHHHHHH,.,.$%^$$##%$%&%**
I never knew why. Ron looked nice enough. like a grandpa with cool elvis hair. I liked his movies too. And when he spoke he made sense. I mabye didnt agree with everything. but I never got the feeling he was intentionally being mean or lying. Even then I knew that life sometimes doing something you may not like, but is still the right thing. I still feel the same way. I dont attribute god like powers to the man like some conservative politicians. Nor do i consider him satan himself, like all liberals do. I just consider him a man, a man who loved his country and was trying his best to be his best for it.
I voted for Carter because I was an idiolistic college student. I have always been an extremely proud American, and my parents raised me with solid conservative values, but I questoned Reagan’s Hollywood background, and thought Carter’s Naval Academy stood for something. Boy was I wrong, and I have never voted Democrat again. Reagan solidified my conservative beliefs, and for that alone, I will be forever greatful to the Great Communicator.
I’m not sure it was intentional, but you have just coined the perfect word for the current state of mouth-breathing, knee jerk progressivism.
Idiology. Idiolism. Idiolistic.
Perfect! I am green with envy. Seriously.
This article made me cry, well, not cry or sob, but the old man tears that you can’t help having because you are to old and experienced not to let emotions envelope you at any given moment.
I’ve always hated people like you because of your obvious ignorance. I don’t mean that your ignorance was obvious to me (which it was)but because your ignorance was obvious to you but you completely ignored it until you were if ever ready to deal with it.
YOU have helped to polarize a nation and feed a liberal media.
Your tombstone should read in part, Traitor.
Ronald Reagan was the last of the great statesmen, the men who served America because they loved her and wanted to give back to her. He didn’t need the money or the glory or the hassle. He believed fervently in our greatness as a people, both individually and collectively. Reagan was a genius at communication and negotiation, and if you want some enlightenment into his thinking, there’s no better place to start than his autobiography. Reagan was also an economist – people tend to forget that he majored in economics in college – and he was an idealist who was so optimistic that his good mood and sunny outlook were contagious. We need him now, more than ever. Ronnie, where are you? Please pray for us. Please send us someone who can lead us back to that morning in America, where the sun rose each day with promise and hope. Real hope, that is, not the false kind being promulgated by the current resident of the White House.
I was in high school during RR’s first term and in the Navy during his second, when i was in high school it was cool to laugh at Reagan because they made fun of him on SNL and it was funny, but after i got out of the service I began to miss him and see that he was a good man.
Well I was one of those ignorant and arrogant fools and I stayed that way until I actually started to pay attention closely to politics and realized I had much more in common with conservatives than I ever did with liberals.
So yes, my liberal vote was bourne of ignorance and plain laziness…to my everlasting shame I did not vote for Reagan when I was old enough, I voted for Mondale. What a silly little fool I was, college educated and completely ignorant and full of myself, thought I knew it all.
It is what I learned after I knew it all that turned me around. Thank God.
Leatherneck, we are all entitled to grow up and move on, doesn’t make anyone a “Traitor” unless you were born perfect, sit down and shut up, being old isn’t an excuse for being obnoxious.
Silk, anyone named, “Leatherneck” has earned the right to his opinion not because of his age, but because of his courage. His life of service was imperiled by men like Duboff and perhaps even Duboff himself.
If Duboff be a contrite penitent, I imagine he would gladly suffer the scorn he richly deserves, even after the fact. Leatherneck did say, “in part.” And I believe he is right. Duboff is posting from his own perspective, which is valuable, but perhaps it is useful to a full healing to receive the blunt truth of the real harm his WILLFUL idiocy caused.
Leatherneck went easy on him.
Well we will just have to disagree a bit on that one lol. As a vet myself (84-96), I can appreciate deeply what others before and after me have done, but I also know there are many jerks in the service as well as out of the service and it doesn’t give one an excuse to be a jerk, no matter what one sacrifices.
Not saying he is a jerk, just being obnoxious..one woman’s opinion. ;0).
I was 18 in 1980, fresh out of Air Force boot camp, and starting college in Southern Illinois.
I loved Reagan and proudly voted for him with my first-ever vote.
I was also a fan of nuclear power because I thought it was the solution to our energy crisis.
Being a fan Reagan AND nuclear power wasn’t something you let be generally known back then if you wanted to have friends.
Heh! I was right behind you, starting SIU in late ’81. Recently discharged from Uncle Sam’s Motorcycle Club. God, I hated Carter with a flaming passion.
..and yes, picking up babes was much easier in the American Tap, when you hid your political orientation.
Dammed, if your name doesn’t sound familiar. Carbondale Mobile Homes (Student dives) sound familiar?
I was a denizen of Carbondale Mobile homes when I was an engineer for WTAO ’73/’74 IIRC. Met my future first mate in front of the Dairy Queen.
I agree with #26, this post should be nominated for The Best of PJM Hall of Fame, ah well, we should create tha first.
Reagan had his good points, but his anti-liberty expansion of the “war on drugs” is routinely ignored by alleged conservatives.
That’s because they erroneously believe that it is compatible with their otherwise small government, pro-freedom beliefs. It isn’t. It is by far the major cause of the loss of so many of our Constitutional rights and our human dignity: random drug tests now everywhere (TSA rape-searches are an outgrowth of this), militarization of police forces, which do not serve warrants or announce themselves but home-invade and often cause unnecessary deaths, blanket traffic checkpoint searches without either warrant or probable cause; all in the name of safety, and supposedly “pro law-enforcement”. Bull. We need safety from the tyrannical use of power. And I don’t need to take a piss in front of anyone to prove I’m NOT on drugs! Anyone who agrees with any of these policies is not a true conservative; they’re the misguided Prohibitionists of our day whose policies cause nothing but more crime, organized crime, governmental abuse and cripplingly huge prison populations. But it makes them FEEL moral. It makes them FEEL LIKE they are “doing something”. Same crap liberals spew in favor of their own big government Big Ideas.
I was stationed in California when Ronnie left the governor’s seat, and when Carter became President. I did not vot for Carter, because I knew he was a quitter and an opportunistic bottom feeder from his tenure as Rickover’s heir apparent at NavSea 08, and besides I really knew Jerry Ford was the better man, and had been quietly competant as a Congressman.
Carter proved me right. Nobody who ever served in the strategic nuclear forces ever lost a sense of unease while that man was President. As I have said before, we knew that he and his NSA, a likely Soviet mole, was trying to surrender to the USSR for the entire 4 dreary years of his term.
Then we discovered that quiet courage and strong conviction can tear down walls. I miss Ronnie.
B Dubya – I was in SAC during the Carter years and very much agree with you. We often wondered just what our commander in chief was smoking when it came to stragegic awareness. I was a crew chief on B-52′s and I can’t remember how many cold North Dakota nights I spent supervising the reassembly of my bomber after it had been canabalized for parts to keep the wing’s other bombers flying. Carter was, and continues to be, an arrogant, ignorant twit whose Idiology (many thanks to a previous poster for this wonderful word) is at right angles to the real axis. The world turned the corner into a much better neighborhood when he was defeated.
Something of a political agnostic(which came from growing up in a house where we had John Birch Society meetings)one day in 1983 I listened to Mr. Reagan speak. At that point I thought I’d heard it all, but something was different. As I listened I heard a man speak with such conviction I was humbled. He wasn’t some arrogant prig or monied senator but a man who’d seen the direction of the country, that would lead the nation into chaos and pain and said, “No, that’s not the way”. At twenty-nine years old I registered to vote the next day. As president he had his failings(far fewer than some of his contemporaries)but was a decent and honest man whose belief in our nation was his salvation and hope for the rest of us. Thank you Mr. Reagan.
…we hated him because we couldn’t admit that the return leg of every Freedom Ride is a Responsibility Ride.
Very eloquently summed up. Kudos!
However: the “Just say No” business was arcane, not pressing, and gave copperhead conservatives an excuse to love government intrusion.
Reagan was a great president, but the drug war was his one great mistake. It was the rough equivalent of John Adams signing the Sedition Act, or of Teddy Roosevelt splitting the Republican vote and allowing Wilson to get elected.
Since libs have thrown out character and morality as key qualifications for a leader the only thing they have left is ‘intelligence.’ In their eyes, every Democrat candidate is more ‘intelligent’ than their Republican counterpart no matter what idiocies said Democrat espouses. Also, Democrats view credentials as evidence of intelligence. So any Democrat that went to an Ivy League university is automatically more intelligent than a Republican from a state university, again regardless of reality.
It’s amazing the utter stupidity of those who worship ‘intelligence’ above all else.
Isn’t interesting that 30 years later we’re still, as Conservatives, fighting the labels that Liberals impose…”Dumb, non-electable, amiable dunce”. They always re-write history in true Orwellian-fashion. Could you consider that Sarah Palin has suffered these labels and that the reason is the Left is scared too death of her is because they don’t want RWR 2.0? 2012 Couldn’t come faster! GO SARAH!!!!
”
I guess somebody who confesses to having been wrong about hating Reagan wouldn’t have any good or logical reasons for having hated. There are no doubt some who still hate but they’d naturally think their reasons are correct. Hate to get into that swamp.
So, by definition or default, everybody who came over from the dark side must confess to some kind of irrational personal views or personal failing. From my view, that’s not at all surprising. Have to be nuts to believe that crap, whether it involved hating RR or not.
There is a blog–”neo-neocon”–run by a convert who made the change on and after 9-11. It covers a lot of ground, but she has a long series on changing, and a lot of thoughtful commenters–I except myself whose comments were probably best characterized as vanilla–and is worth a read. Back in the archives.
One of my questions is why those of us who were right all along were different from the converts prior to the conversion. Not “how” we were different, but “why”.
Massive propaganda, political correctness, and active suppression coupled with our own go-along-get-along self-suppression of our voice.
I had just turned 18 in 1980, that fall’s election was the first I had ever voted in. I am and will be forever proud that the very FIRST name I ever checked off in the very first vote of my life was for Ronald Reagan! I loved him when I was young, and I love him now!
It is fun to see all of my old enemies from those days finally cracking and admitting the truth – almost as much as it will be to see Obama go down hard in 2012!!!
You left out that the Left hated Reagan because he was “stupid.” An “an “amiable dunce,” as Diplomat Clark Clifford called him.
I grew up a lower-middle-class Irish American in Chicago. Reagan was from our class and background, and we knew it, so we couldn’t sneer at him for that. My father was apolitical, but my mother was a Democrat to her fingertips, as is my sister. But one day day in November of 1980, I reluctantly decided that the bumbling Carter had to go, and I pulled the lever for Reagan.
I remember the reaction of the people around me. My mother sneered that voting for Reagan was “like voting for Rin-Tin-Tin”. My sister literally gasped when she heard my admission: you’d have that I’d admitted to a murder. A co-worked asked me, in all seriousness, if I thought we had election our own version of Hindenburg; all I could say in response was, “If he’s Hindenburg, who’s Hitler?” Those reactions, oddly, showed me that I’d done the right thing: that the dismissal of Reagan was based not on fact, or even on something as elevated as bigotry, but something much lower: on sheer snobbery. Those who dismissed him as a boob, a crank, a fool, an ignoramus, were proclaiming their own social and moral superiority to those who dared to vote for him. That the very thing they accused us of – a prejudiced reaction to someone based not on what he does, but who he is – was precisely what they were doing. And if there’s anything I despise, it’s a snob.
So here I am, a convert to the dark side. Not a reverse snob, I hope; but one who wishes to live the examined life, or at least engage in an examined politics. So, thank you Ronald Reagan, for that, and so much more.
I remember the execrable Gerry Trudeau’s character “Ron Headrest”, who made fun of RR’s supposed napping habits. I wonder how much self-awareness you have to be missing to spend the full term of every Republican President mocking them with nasty charicatures of their every flaw, real or invented, and then as soon as a Dem slithers into the White House, just switch it off and dosomething else for a while.
Must be the last name. Both flaming a-holes, but Pierre was the smart one.
Hey, I remember when actors were stupid; and not the political sages, moral beacons, and military geniuses they are today.
Only watched one episode of Mash. Couldn’t stand it. Especially the Alan Alda character.
Now, now, let’s not give short shrift to Richard Milhouse Nixon for whom I voted and for whom I proudly served as my C-in-C.
I would do it again.
As a mature grad student (having already served in Army Combat Arms), I had my doubts about RR, but the only alternative out there was Jimmuh Cahtuh, so I voted Libertarian. Recall that the mantra du jour was: “Question Authority”. It doesn’t work so well in the military (chuckle), but in national politics? Natch.
In 1984 Ronald Reagan was THE man.
There WILL someday be another RR, but no time soon.
Mauriturite Salutamus, Ronaldus Magnus.
~(Ä)~
I loved Reagan. But I’m from the Midwest. To me, New York City and the cultural milieu Duboff inhabited was an alien world. I also found it repulsive. I still do.
BTW, the brilliant historian Paul Johnson has asserted that Eisenhower was one of our greatest (and most underrated) presidents. I agree. I like Ike.
Thanks Jeremiah, for the best blog post I’ve probably ever read. It speaks of some kind of redemptive power at work in not just your life, but all of our lives. Somehow the truth is out there, and it shows up in our doorway in its own mysterious way. I’m 50 and could appreciate President Ronald Reagan while I was a college student and young adult. I was at a trade show and found out Reagan had died when I returned to my hotel. I bawled for a long time in the privacy of my room. After that, each time I saw a photo related to this news I could not control myself and began again to cry. I look forward to knowing another American leader some day about whom I can feel the same way, can celebrate her life and contribution too.
‘“an “amiable dunce,” as Diplomat Clark Clifford called him.’
He might have been a dunce, but he wasn’t stupid enough to get the United States involved in a war in Vietnam that was none of our business, get 60,000 American kids killed doing it, and then find a way to lose the only war we’ve ever lost to a bunch of ragtag communists.
And, that’s more than you can say for lefty morons like the late (but not lameneted) Clark Clifford.
Since this poster identified an offense common to all our presidents since RWR, the initiating or continuance of our involvement in wars, perhaps the quest for a worthy successor to RWR can be answered in another “old bumbling fool”, Ron Paul. He has been a consistent opponent of our involvement in wars that do dot involve our national security, but his consistency in domestic issues is even more impressive. And to those who say RWR’s main error was the war on drugs, may I suggest two points: 1) Ron Paul agrees with you, and 2) like RWR’s war on drugs, LBJ’s war on poverty was and is a losing proposition. Ron Paul, age 75, as a successor to Ron Reagen, age ? (I forget, but then I too have a few years on most posting here).
In 1980 I was 21 years old. I voted for John Anderson because I was a smug and shallow college student who had felt Carter was not liberal *enough* (I had signed on as a Kennedy alternate delegate to our state Democratic convention). It was a useless protest vote for someone who does not merit even being a footnote in history.
I hated Reagan because I swallowed (hook, line and sinker) the leftist crap that Reagan was a dangerous cave-man who would ruin our country and the world.
It was hip and popular to be liberal so that helped to reduce any tendencies I may have had for critical examination of leftist “principles”.
In those days I was into “new wave” and “punk” music and the anarchic junk that went with it (from politics to chaotic lifestyle).
I am lucky to have survived the series of really dumb decisions I made back then and come to appreciate Reagan and what he did for America (and the world).
Several of the people I knew back then managed to kill themselves via drugs and/ or sex. Being an “enlightened” leftist made it easy for people to choose things like drugs and/ or unsafe sex so I’ve come to believe liberalism helped pave the way to their deaths. Reagan stood for strong beliefs in right and wrong, which is judgemental and therefore offensive to liberals. Such principles interfere with Liberal ideas of “fun” regardless of the lies they put forth regarding their “values”.
56% of New Yorkers would vote for Anthony Wiener again. That tells you everything you need to know about Democrats and their “values”.
I miss Reagan and wish we had someone of his calibre and patriotism at the helm of our government.
As David Horowitz maintains, “The only thing liberals are liberal about are hard drugs and sex.”
Wasn’t Clark Clifford the Democrat equivalent to the Postmaster General. He was famous for delivering bulky “packages” to politicians all over DC. His opinion means squat.
Duboff’s essay asserts:
No factual basis is provided for this assertion .. and it is in fact not true.
Consulting the Wikipedia page Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States, in particular the table of presidential scholar surveys, we find that of the presidents since FDR, historians rank Reagan fifth … behind Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson … ahead of Nixon, Carter, Ford, the two Bushes, and Clinton.
Just pointing out the facts!
Are the historians right? That is a separate question … their ratings seem about right to me.
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_results
One of the greatest examples of the degeneration of the U.S. education system is the use of Wikipedia articles as proof of anything. Read a publication by an historian with a track record of a body of work; look at his methodology and references; and make your own determination about his conclusions. Historical truth is not determined by a 51% – 49% poll result from a sample of the population who are passionate, but uninformed.
Any historians who consider Truman, Kennedy and LBJ to have been better
Presidents than Reagan, have zero credibility and aren’t worth listening to.
Reagan orchestrated the demise of the Soviet Union – none of the other four
Presidents have any accomplishment even remotely close to it. The Soviets
were on the march at the end of the Carter era and defunct at the end
of the Reagan Presidency. It was truly a brilliant performance nobody
saw coming or predicted (except maybe Reagan himself).
Reagan also took a moribund economy, wracked by no-growth and inflation,
and turned it into a juggernaut that saw almost 30 straight years of
uninterrupted growth. Reagan’s success became the role model for economies
across the world – every major power since has reduced tax rates from
the asinine levels of the 1970′s. Neither Truman, Kennedy, Eisenhower
or Johnson had anywhere near the influence or impact.
Certainly Reagan made his share of mistakes, but let’s look at the others:
– Eisenhower was a very effective President – he just wasn’t as
effective as Reagan. I’m sure Ike would have been very impressed
with Reagan’s defeat of the Soviets.
– Kennedy cannot be considered Reagan’s equal or even a great President.
He just wasn’t President long enough. Kennedy also made his share of
mistakes (Bay of Pigs, assassination of Diem etc.). Kennedy
had some good instincts but really no accomplishments to brag about.
2 1/2 years isn’t long enough to give a complete reading.
– Truman was a very good President but his disastrous handling of
the Korean War (he had no idea how to win it or even end it)
surely should place him below Reagan.
– LBJ, in my opinion, was one of the worst Presidents in our history.
The country was tearing itself apart at the end of his administration.
He escalated the Vietnam War, got 60,000 boys killed, presided over
some of the dumbest military planning in world history, then threw
up his hands, quit and left the mess for someone else to clean up.
Truly pathetic. No self respecting historian would consider LBJ
anywhere near Reagan’s equal.
Let us not forget LBJ’s “war on poverty” which issued in the era of entitlements, creating the dependent mentality which has robbed millions of our citizens of self-respect, of any semblance of work ethic, and of the concept of contributing to the general good, let alone the destruction it continues to wreck upon our economy. LBJ was the greatest enemy the African-American community will ever know. I’d rank him just below Carter.
Every single one of those polls listed show FDR being in the top 3. That tells me all I need to know about those “historians”. Bunch of Leftists.
FDR was a complete disaster. He did nothing right. Nothing. Great depression. Social Security (copied from the Nazis). WWII was grossly mismanaged, and he gave away the store to the USSR at Yalta.
Reagan made a mistake in Lebanon. He freely admitted it. He stated frankly he did not know how insane ME politics were. He pulled out fast. The military also learned their lesson about guards being properly armed. Now a guard shack in a hostile zone is a mini-fortress.
Reagan said his biggest mistake was Amnesty. That’s the one he wanted back. The Dems broke their word, of course, and it set a bad precedent.
Results are what matter, here. Reagan united the country, built a dynamic economy, while engaging the USSR in a massive arms race which broke them. Foreign affairs and domestic affairs were clear triumphs. His re-election in ’84 was almost a complete sweep, missing only MN and DC (13 electoral votes out of 538). He almost got MN, too, missing by just under 1k votes.
The days were just sunnier under Reagan. Life was good. They were truly gloomy under FDR. Life was bad. Yet your stupid historians Rated FDR as tops. Please.
A physicist,
2 things wrong with that:
1). I would not trust Wikipedia as proof of *anything* after what they did with Namir Deiter and the other webcomics. It’s an OK starting point for net research but too much of it is subject to change without notice, being dumped down the memory hole or out and out hoaxing to be relied upon entirely. As anything more than such a starting point it is no better than trash.
2). The article said “widely regarded”. It did *not* say “widely regarded by historians”. People who are not historians are still people so a poll by historians will neither prove nor disprove if someone is widely regarded in a particular manner.
I grew up hating Reagan too. But then again I am not an American. But I knew he was as evil as evil can be and I kept on knowing that until I stopped listening to others and started checking stuff out for myself. That’s how I became a conservative by the way.
It’s a good lesson that if you hate anyone this much, there’s something wrong with you. And if you hate a major authority figure this much, that’s all about you, and how you haven’t come anywhere near growing up yet.
This kind of endemic hatred, and the flip side of idolatry for public figures (e.g., JFK-worship, Clinton-worship, Obama-worship), is alien to the majority of people. That’s a good thing.
The mainstream media are overwhelmingly populated by people to whom it seems normal and appropriate to hate one politician with a pathological obsession and worship another one with every fiber of their beings. I think their mode of expression makes it seem like more of America is engaged in this dynamic than really is.
As with some of the other commenters here, I have to say this “Reagan hatred passage” is not at all the story of my life, nor did I spent any time in the 1980s in a milieu in which I even encountered it. It seems foreign and demented to me, as if a whole bunch of people from Manhattan and LA went through a crazy-liberal version of a “John Birch” phase. A number of them seem to still be in it.
KW64: “…the left’s penchant for trying to impose government run economies and businesses when over and over this approach has failed and ended in poverty and tyranny.”
Ah, the leftists are so much superior to you and everyone else, the leftists are educated in Havard and other Ivies. The leftists are entitled to so much more. Yet, people like you never acknowledge their superiority, that ignorant insouciance grates. In the ideal world, the intellectually superior, attested to by their Ivy degrees, would restore order, put the ignorant in their proper place. With their superior intellect, the leftists are the 20th century (no typo here) aristocrats. It’s their birth right to rule over the repugnant unwashed (the cutie Katie Couric said so). And so the Teleprompt reader who could not utter a coherent thought for “his brain works so much faster than his mouth” is unappreciated. That grates too.
“this approach has failed and ended in poverty and tyranny”
The idea is right, nevertheless, only there were never, until now, leaders intelligent enough to implement it. To paraphrase a lady who has a superior intellect: sometimes you have to give up something for the common good. Sometimes this something is the unwashed’s so-called freedom or liberty, sometimes this something is your lives. Unlike the intellectuals, the ignorant never see the big picture. To them it is tyranny to make them give up their freedom and lives. They are too ignorant to see that China is so much better than us. (NYT’s Tom Freeman says so.) The ignorant always whine about the death of millions of reactionaries, but refuse to acknowledge their death was necessary for the greater good. “Poverty”? Who cares? The leaders and the apparatchiks are comfy enough. Those who are too stupid to know what’s good for them deserve to be poor.
The Gary Sick book has been as thoroughly discredited as Carter’s policies. Apparently there are still some who can be hood winked, however.
I come from a Democrat family. My uncle was an elder statesmen in Texas Democrat politics who marched with Caeser Chavez.
I didn’t hate Reagan when I still considered myself a liberal.
Heck, today, a passionate supporter of conservatism, I don’t hate Obama.
Maybe that’s the difference. Hate is personal. Opposition to policy is not.
Hmmm …
I’ve never voted for a Democrat, but I’ve never really been enthusiastic about the Republican nominees, presidents, and other leadership during my lifetime. Unlike Reagan, they don’t seem too keen on actually slashing the size of the government, but rather giving it a haircut so that they can please the right-wing budget-cutters but still pander (albeit unsuccessfully) to the left-wing spenders. Bush II’s tax cut was much tamer than Reagan’s, and don’t forget the bailouts signed into law by Bush.
In the first election that I was old enough to vote, I voted for Bush II, not so much that I thought he would be a really good president but because a Gore presidency would have been a disaster; same thing with McCain vs. Obama (and we now have under Obama what we would have had under Gore). If the Republicans really want to influence the future of American society like Reagan did, they need to find someone who will attract votes because people genuinely like him and think he will be good, not because he isn’t as bad as the alternative.
“A PHYSICIST” invokes the invincible authority of a pack of historians. Check back to 1961 when Arthur Schlesinger started the presidential rating poll. JFK was set far above Ike. Time and Vietnam (JFK’s project originally) dropped his relative rating substantially. John Patrick Diggins, one of America’s pre-eminent intellectual historians, published a book two or three years ago placing RWR among our four best presidents.
Back in the day Diggins held to the “amiable dunce” school. He was a liberal then. He still is. Unlike our physicist, he is not content to seek the authority of people who agree with him.
@ John Frary; Actually, our involvement in Viet Nam started with Eisenhower. As a member of SEATO, we supplied South Viet Nam with 200 military advisors to organise their army. These unarmed troops were not to engage in combat; just advise their counterparts as to what to do. Under Kennedy they were increased in number and allowed to be armed.
You raise a good point, John Fray.
Anyone can check that the 13 separate polls of historians have ranked Reagan’s performance in the teens on average … better than many former presidents, but not great.
Vietnam definitely hurt Kennedy and Johnson rating among historians. What similarly hurts Reagan’s rating was abandoning Lebanon to (what became) Hezbollah/Al Qaeda … the US Marines never forgot Reagan’s “cut-and-run” after the Beirut Barracks Bombing.
——
Beirut Barracks Bombing
URL: http://www.defense.gov/home/features/2008/1008_beirut/
a cursory “google” search on “presidential rankings” nets some pretty obvious results
first entry is wiki
next is timesonline; then msnbc; usnews; a couple on the bias of presidential rankings; then the dreaded siena poll– which, by the way seems to get a majority of the slots in the “wiki” results
siena rates fdr in their own poll (5 separate polls from ’82-2010) as the number one president every time– in contrast, george washington is ranked 4 in each poll)
as a “physicist” you should have some idea how to gather a proper sample
conducting a “presidential” poll by only asking “academics/intellectuals”
will hardly provide any insight
For medical questions … I ask physicians,
Math … mathematicians,
Science … scientists,
Engineering … engineers,
History … historians.
Brands of conservatism that repudiate medicine, math, science, engineering, and history … and repose their trust instead in political demagogues, media pundits, and hired hacks … are doomed brands of conservatism.
So, you hated Reagan because he was not one of you.
So much for your diversity, hypocrite.
Eisenhower gets a lot of credit among historians for committing America to the Space Program and the Missile Program … which Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Carter all wisely continued … the programs were a mighty engine to the US economy … a spur to technical development … that the Soviet Union’s economy proved unable to match.
The Reagan administrations contribution to the space program — the Strategic Missile Defense Program — was a complete boondoggle … the “Cold Equations” said it couldn’t work … and come to find, it didn’t work.
That’s another reason why almost all historians rate Eisenhower above Reagan … the Eisenhower administration chose its technology-and-infrastructure programs wisely and made them work, both technically and economically … the Reagan administration wasn’t nearly so good at this.
Reagan was better-looking than Eisenhower … but that’s about it.
So if Eisenhower and Reagan both were running now … there’s no question which one I (and most American historians) would vote for.
I’ll try this again. Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviet Union and
did it without instigating a war. He simply outmanuevered and outthought
all the Soviet leaders he came up against, including Gorbachev. Nothing
in Eisenhower’s Presidency and certainly not in the Truman, Kennedy or
LBJ Administrations even comes close. The win over the Soviets brought
freedom to millions of eastern europeans and truly altered the world we
live in. Any historian who refuses to recognize the impact of Reagan’s
victory is simply not worth listening to.
By the way, if the Strategic Missile Defense Initiative was such a
‘boondoggle’, why were the Soviets obsessed with getting us to end
it. The Soviet’s obsession with our missile defense is what finally
brought them to the table and paved the way for our peace with
the Soviets – the Russians are still paranoid about our missile
defense capabilities. I’d say it was money well spent. Again, any
historian who doesn’t admit this isn’t worth listening to.
Neither Teflon-coated cookware nor silicon computer chips required the U.S. space program for “a spur to technical development.”
To claim such things as Tang, Space Food Sticks, the Space Pen, and a bunch of space-themed motels near Disneyland are products of a “mighty engine to the US economy” that did require the U.S. space program for their existence is poppycock.
Try again.
OK … looking for references? … by non-partisan professional engineers? … try Stephen B. Johnson’s in-depth The Secret of Apollo: Systems Management in American and European Space Programs … also Neil Sheehan’s outstanding A Fiery Peace in a Cold War: Bernard Schriever and the Ultimate Weapon … or the classic Booton and Ramo technical article The Development of Systems Engineering in IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems … or (from the other side) Andrei Sakharov’s autobiographical Memoirs, especially the chapter titled “1953.”
All these authors name 1953 as the key year … and the Eisenhower administration as the prime mover. All that Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan did … was follow suit.
For a less technical, but vivid and very readable on-line account, see the Time Magazine special issue Electronics: the New Era, for Monday, Apr. 29, 1957.
Yeah … that’s when the foundations were laid for a Golden Era for American prosperity and American national security … and Reagan-style policies had zero (obviously) to do with it.
URL: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,821134,00.html
I suggest that everything you say is correct except the last sentence. Reagan added something missing – the will to do somethign about it.
“A Physicist,” you are correct that Eisenhower was a competent president, but your statement about missile defense is just flat wrong, and you should know better. The “cold equations” do NOT say that missile defense would not or could not work. Indeed, SDI violates no laws of physics, but it was and is a very difficult problem that engineers can solve. Do you remember the ridicule with which competent scientists regarded the practicality of ICBMs or, heaven forfend, SLBMs? I do, and it is the same unfounded skepticism and dishonesty of those who summarily dismiss missile defense. If what you actually mean is that a 100% effective missile defense system is impossible, then I agree. Don’t, however, make broad statements that are obviously wrong to anyone with a 1970′s high school science education.
The consensus of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers in the 50s was that ICBMs were technically feasible … see the above-named Johnson, Sheehan, and Ramo histories for example … and so it proved.
The consensus of mathematicians, physicists, and engineers in the 80s was that the Reagan/Teller Star Wars program was utterly infeasible … see William Broad’s Star Warriors for example … and so it proved.
The SDI doesn’t violate any laws of physics. Otherwise, how do we happen to have a missile defense system working right now, thank you very much. What didn’t make much sense at the time was the schedule. They were going to have it operational in a year, …gleeful laughter amongst engineers who knew it didn’t violate physical principal, but did violate PERT charts. But I’d argue that it worked anyway. I don’t think the intent was to build it, but to get the Soviets to try to invest heavily in countering. In that context, boy did it ever work like a charm. And a good job done there. Take a lesson from Bastiat, I’m not going to say any more publicly, but think about what we didn’t know, what they didn’t know and what happened. Mr. Reagan may not have wasted all that time on the sets of those westerns learning poker. Next, think about what we, the public, don’t know now.
John, you have just self identified your real difference from the core of American thinking.
You place a vast ammount of value on the opinion and consensus of others, who you ardently emulate. In matters of style, that is a wonderful thing. In matters of science, as we have seen from the AGW hoax, consensus is a product of greed, dishonesty and incompetance.
I conclude from this revelation that you are most likely fitted to be a U of W faculty member. TTC,T.
Perhaps we troglodites from the west slope of the Cascade Crest can be forgiven if we think scientific consensus is better used as toilet paper, and not for research grant applications.
But, forgive me, I digress from this blog post, which really isn’t about you, John.
B Dubya asserts: “scientific consensus is better used as toilet paper”
————————
The Eisenhower administration’s missile programs, space programs, computer programs, and materials science programs all worked.
The Reagan administration’s didn’t.
How exactly does the remarkable hypothesis that “scientific consensus is better used as toilet paper” explain this?
Just to point out, James Killian’s memoir Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower: a Memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology lends precisely zero support to the “science is toilet paper” theory.
You offer a false standard here. You think it is all about making scientific investment work. That was a good thing to do during Eisenhower’s time. Reagan was not trying to contain the USSR, he was trying to defeat it. Boosting our armed forces was part of it. Introducing medium-range nuclear missiles to Europe was part of it. SDI was part of it. It did not matter if SDI wouldn’t actually work. It only mattered as a bargaining chip and a way to make the USSR spend even more money that they did not have.
Reagan put them on a path to their doom, and Bush finished the job. Reagan broke the USSR. He did it on purpose. It was no accident. He did not get lucky. “We win. They lose.” It was deliberate, calculated. It worked. That was a very good investment in science and infrastructure, to my mind. It just depends on what you are trying to achieve. Reagan achieved what he was trying to achieve.
Marc, your rationalization gets parroted all the time … but it doesn’t explain why Reagan himself was the architect of the START-I treaty … which saved the Soviet Union a bundle of money (and us too). The point is … Reagan acolytes can’t have it both ways … if Reagan’s (money-saving) START-I treaty with the Soviets was genius … the Reagan’s (technically incompetent and economically wasteful) SDI program was idiocy … in vice versa.
My own view is that Reagan’s START-I treaty was a considerable success … Reagan’s SDI program was an utter failure … and because this success and failure largely canceled one-another … neither had all that much to do with the fate of the Soviet Union.
That is why (IMHO) historians are correct to rank Reagan’s as a merely OK presidency … definitely not Eisenhower’s equal.
URL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I#Proposal
The planets were aligned, Marc. Those planets being Thatcher and Gorbachev.
Reagan imposed an intellectual “military, industrial complex”, that had the effect of a perfect bluff in a poker hand.
Ronnie was a master at the ‘bluff’, and knew when to call one.
Did it work? No. But it didn’t matter. They faked the missle test (blew it up) and fooled the Soviet union, and that DID matter.
Manhattan sounds like Palo Alto-East, which is considerably different from East Palo Alto…
“Consulting the Wikipedia page Historical rankings of Presidents of the United States, in particular the table of presidential scholar surveys, we find that of the presidents since FDR, historians rank Reagan fifth … behind Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Johnson … ahead of Nixon, Carter, Ford, the two Bushes, and Clinton.”
Yeah, that’s a good list. I frequently look at how leftist academics rate presidents when I’m in need of a good laugh.
I returned to California from MIT, where I had been studying physics, in 1968, to enter the doctoral program at Berkeley. Although I had grown up in California, I hadn’t been paying much attention to the State’s politics. When I saw a photo of Mr. Reagan, in the Daily Cal, flipping off a group of students on campus, I must tell you that I was not impressed. Ditto for putting Sheriff Madigan in charge of law enforcement, and taking personal command, while removing the normal police command structure. I also got gassed by a helicopter walking to lunch one day, which was interesting, because I was in the Army Reserve and could easily have ended up on the other side in that one. It resulted in a lot of violence, which was probably the idea. You may recall that having demonstrators against you at that time was a sure fire formula for successful re-election. So much so that they caught Mr. Nixon paying demonstrators to show up and revile him in San Jose. Yes, riling up the students was the key to success…and I never thought Mr. Reagan was stupid.
When Mr. Reagan became President, however, my opinion of his work changed. It’s probably the effect of the following philosophy: find the meanest SOB on the block, and get him pointed at your enemies. So I think his presidency worked out rather well, in fact.
I hate Reagan as I hate Bush, Clinton, Carter, Obama and the rest. They are are talking heads trying to make themselves something “big” when in reality they are simply dhimmis trying to escape from their fate.
“We hated Reagan”, too.
I marched in D.C. against the threatened firing of the Air Traffic Controllers. I confess; I was delusional, and impressed by the overwhelming loud ignorance being ‘professed’ by the ‘enlightened’.
Mr. Duboff, you have written a masterpiece of learned introspection. Thank you for this slice of your political education.
Mine has many similarities.
My family was Democrat for some profound reason. But, I was rebellious, and regarded their every belief with avid skepticism. (To my good fortune!)
My parents sent me to private school which engrained critical thinking and cynicism into my psyche. And I’m thankful for their sacrifices.
With a subversive title as you have here, you may capture and convert a few liberals. That would be splendid. For that would be a fitting reward for such an incisive article.
Hey, I was born a neo-conservative. My Dad was a 40′s liberal, and, as they say, the party left us. I worked for Democrats for Nixon in Brooklyn in ’72, being disgusted with my older peers destroying the country. When I turned 18 I registered Republican, and was disappointed I wasn’t disinherited. (Turns out my Mom had voted against Kennedy and my grandfather for Dewey. Of course, almost everyone I knew voted against McGovern.)
Knock out us “neo-cons” and you knock out the Reagan Democrats. Now try to win an election.
My favorite moment of Reagan’s is the scene in the beginning of Dutch by Edmund Morris, (so I really don’t know whether it’s true or not!) where as a lifeguard, after saving another life at the swimming hole in Dixon, Illinois, he’d say, “You’re just another notch in the log, kid.” What evocative imagery to illustrate the Great One’s paradoxical personality!
Well, Jeremiah, I suppose your transformation is well nigh complete and I have only myself to blame. Should have never introduced you to David Horowitz.
IMHO, the entire conservative-liberal paradigm is obsolete, nothing but a dead end; and so is the very concept of nation-states.
Read my rebuttal in an article soon to be published in Blogcritics. Now that you’ve been transformed, it’s time to transcend.
Very eloquently written though.
Later.
Roger Nowosielski
A “physicist”? LOL, recognizing failed pretenders is so easily, they are just prone to show their credentials and follow consensus too. Real scientist don’t care about consensus, the majority can be right, the majority can be wrong. So what? Consensus is indeed better used as a toilet paper.
I was always amazed by the amount of Reagan-hatred that existed after the 1980 election. In my high school students hung their drawings of Reagan sporting fangs in the hallways! Nowadays that would be fashionable so they’d think of something else, but blind hatred was the only response, since there was really nothing to hate Reagan for – save, of course, the fact that their parents, Democratic operatives in D.C., would be kicked out of power.
Mea Culpa, John Lennon?
There’s a report afoot that the first Beatle to die, John Winston Ono Lennon, Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, MBA division, was ”a closet Republican” who admired Ronald Reagan, didn’t care for Jimmy Carter, and by the time of his death was embarrassed over how politically naive he had been earlier in life.
If the report, based on a very authoritative source, Lennon’s last personal assistant, Fred Seaman, is true I would have to retract much of what I wrote in “John Lennon, Flawed Man in Life, Demigod in Death.” (http://bit.ly/kHAVTx)
I still can’t retract everything in that article. John Lennon was indeed a deeply-flawed human being and he was elevated to a grossly exaggerrated status of a virtual god-like figure following his fatal shooting by the deranged Mark David Chapman outside The Dakota on the fateful evening of December 8, 1980.
Lennon’s life was snuffed out at the tender age of 40 years.
I had written in “John Lennon . . .” that the singer-composer was “Jealous, possessive, violent, angry, chauvinistic, abusive, adulterous, prideful, arrogant defender of a twice-convicted murderer, buddy to the Chicago Seven and violent Yippie peace activists Jerry Rubin, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Angela Davis, and Bobby Seale of the Black Panther Party, . . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4928
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I hated Reagan but now have come to appreciate him. In the light of the new extremist Right Wing, Reagan seems so reasonable. He supported a higher upper tax rate than we have under the supposedly liberal Obama. He was civil and kept the right wing lunatic fringe in line. He ran the show, and knew just how much to push and when to retreat. He paid lip service to the right wing ideals without forcing the country to suffer too many of their ill-effects. He was, in short, a liberal’s conservative, at the same time he was a conservative’s liberal.